Green Futures

Sat. Jun 13

As this is my fourth summer trip to China, my preparations were somewhat blasé. Busy with other important tasks earlier in the week, including a 4-hour drive to visit friends which did a lot to boost both my driving skills, navigational skills, and confidence in both, I found myself the day before departure with no serious packing completed. I wasn’t particularly worried, as I knew one day was more than enough time to accomplish all I needed.

Despite this assurance, however, I still had a lingering malaise which hung about me. It came from a number of sources: my unhappiness at not having a long-term solid place to put all the detritus of four years at college, and the lack of a welcome place to store it in the meantime. It was too painful to simply throw out my thousands of hours of labor right away, even as I realize that I’m probably never going to be interested in what my 2^nd year Chinese midterm was (and even less what score I was given!). Perhaps once some time has passed I can more easily let go of these markers of my efforts, failures, and successes. In the meantime, they are sequestered up in the attic of my grandparents.

Anxiety about the program I am participating in this summer also troubled me. The same organization, Associated Colleges in China (ACC) had run the Chinese language program I did last summer. The experience was highly enriching and I learned much, but I also have never before or since worked so hard; literally day and night. Swarthmore has a reputation for hard work, a reputation which is deserves (if only in comparison with the lax requirements of other contemporary colleges), but it was no match for ACC’s workload. During my summer final exams, I came down with something, perhaps a combination of eating some bad food and the overwhelming pressure (stress does terrible things to your immune system), and spent that last week when not in class sick in bed.

Last year I was also recruited to type up the final evaluations written by the students who engaged in ACC’s “Field Studies” (FS) program. Apparently it also was a breakneck pace, and everyone got sick at one point or another in the course of their time. And now it is my turn to participate in that program, and I was somewhat nervous about my prospects.

In addition to those two factors, I had not spoken Chinese, really, since my honors Oral exam, and was feeling quite rusty. Furthermore, ACC’s next draft of my presentation topic was due, and I wasn’t sure when I would do it (or that it would be particularly good). All of these concerns meant that I approached my departure for China slightly less than a light step and carefree spirit.

Once I arrived at the airport, however, I began to perk up. Traveling really is quite fun, and allows for many opportunities to feel good about yourself, especially when it comes to other people. Even before my airplane left, I bumped into two of my classmates from ACC last summer – we were on the same plane going to Beijing! I also managed to help a Chinese man get an area code for a city near Boston and talked with an elderly couple visiting their daughter who went to China to teach English for a year and eight years later still hasn’t quite made it back to the US. Later on, I found myself talking with a fellow on the plane who is doing Harvard’s language program and comes from Allentown.

To top it off, I arrived at my youth hostel and met a guy, Jake, who arrived a few minutes after me – and had come from the same plane I had taken, and was participating in ACC this summer! I took a shine to him, and showed him around my old stomping grounds. First to ACC (right across the street from out hostel), where I met many of my old teachers and some of my friendly-acquaintance front desk staff, then to the supermarket to buy toilet paper and watermelon, and finally to my favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant for dinner.

Back at the hostel, we set in the little lounge; I was too tuckered out to consider another venture out. Our conversation was joined by a very interesting American from Oregon, currently studying law but on an internship in China. His story was fascinating, and came out in bits and pieces over the course of our rambling, four-hour conversation. An enlisted man in the Air force for five years, he then fulfilled a dream Paul (my friend from high school) and I had long maintained: to simply ditch college, drive an 18-wheeler, and learn through books and lectures on tape. He did exactly this for a year and during long trips from L.A. to Miami, he took classes online, and thereby managed to complete a B.S. In a year. He had many insights about China that I also shared, which convinced me that he was a wise and knowledgeable man.

The hostel itself is run by Japanese, which is rather funny, as I never heard of any other Japanese-run hostels in China. The staff are very deferential, almost amusingly so. It also makes for some strange international experiences, such as hearing a German song about Chinese people sung by an American – in a Japanese hostel. I quite like it here, though, and all the fun of hostel living has quite perked up my spirits. Its not ever day you get to sleep on the bunk above an elderly Japanese man who is trying to break into domestic the blueberry wine business (if one exists at all) before expanding to export back to Japan!

This morning I woke up at the crack of 4:40 am local time and have been bright eyed and bushy tailed ever since, in spite of a good-faith effort to get back to sleep. I figure I will crash sometime mid-afternoon, bu if I can make it through to the evening, I should be set pretty well onto Beijing time. Hopefully I won’t crash during the ACC practice session; I agreed to help out the new ACC teachers by being a test student for them to practice teaching on, which will involve lessons today and tomorrow. I already have homework, and one of my tasks this morning is to preview it. I’d hate to be the “teaching a student who didn’t do the lesson” example.

I managed to forget my favorite dictionary, and so yesterday found a bookstore which had it. I also bought a towel. If only I had not forgotten to pack that last-minute cheese, I would be all set. I am sure I will manage, however. Being back in China and using my Chinese is great, and sitting here typing this update on my laptop while hearing the funny antics of the hostel staff (I could make a sit-com based in a youth hostel, with a wonderful and non-fictional cast of Swedish, American, Japanese, African, and Chinese people) out in the hall is great fun. It’s an auspicious beginning to another summer in China.

Cheers,
Chris

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 9:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.