Ni Hao.. .

I feel like throwing up.. .

This is organic work, like a plant that keeps growing day by day. It’s fluid. It changes, at times quickly, at others slow. It’s a miracle working itself out. The factors that influence the development are too many to count, but one can always boil it down to the very basics like sun, water, soil. But again, those are just the bare minimum, the very basics to understanding life.

What can be said about my travels in China that I haven’t already shared in some form through my emails or personal journal entries? I suppose in order to write any good report, one has to ask a question and then answer it.

This is the post China world of Easten Law…

“So Easten, how was China?”

‘Good.’

There are the countless cultural and historical lessons I’ve acquainted myself with, the multi-faceted developments of China’s modernity, the spiritual dimensions that sit quietly behind the curtain. There are the long train rides, the overabundant meals of traditional tastes, the roaming of streets packed with buses, cars, bikes, and people of every sort. The bustling of the city, the reflections of the countryside, the mountain and the skyscraper, the river and the highway, they are all burned into my memory.

“Wow, that sounds interesting.”

When you talk about China, you’ll no doubt touch on ancient dynastic history or modern Chinese development in economics, politics, and the cultural understandings of the everyday. When I talk about China, there will always be a personal dimension that feels unnoticeable but ever-present like the lantern in the corner that illuminates a room where one is busily attending to their errands.

Thanks to my Dad’s own interests, I’ve also consumed a good amount of geography and environmental concepts that I would certainly not have noticed alone.

My Dad took a lot of pictures in the train rides between different cities. I’ve noticed they generally fall into three areas: between Beijing and Lanzhou, between Lanzhou and Chengdu, and between Shanghai and Hong Kong. When you compare these pictures the differences are startling.

Beijing to Lanzhou features a lot of brown with muddy rivers and terraced mountainsides. The silt and clay easily erodes with rainfall and saturates the Huang river. It is along the Huang river that Chinese civilization began. Yet when you look at the residence surrounding the river today, one cannot help notice the poverty that plagues the small farming villages. Traveling through Sichuan you begin to see a lot of green. The vegetation springs forth along the foothills of the Sichuan basin. The rocks are of a more solid variety here than in Gansu. The area also feels more middle class. When one heads through some of the southern provinces, the land flattens out tremendously and farming takes on a lot of different principles than in the west and northwest. There is a lot of water irrigation of sorts. Perhaps most noticeable is that the standard of living rockets upward. Even the small villages look sleek and modern with their new housing. Evidently the south is the place to do business and it shows from the big cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong as well as the entire countryside in between. These things I would have missed noticing if Dad wasn’t around to point them out.

My grandpa’s old village is one of these newer looking communities… I think. Dad told me stories of how Grandpa was born to a simple farming family in the eastern shoreline province of Zhejiang. He left home early to join the military where he became the third graduating class of Chiang Kai Shek’s military school. Evidently he only returned to his village a few times the rest of his life. On one occasion when grandma stayed there for a few months, he ordered a small infantry to stay with her as protection or what not. The dynamics of a small village are very peculiar. My father and uncle experienced it themselves on one short visit. Since everyone knows everyone, the entrance of newcomers is always big news. Depending on who you are and where you’re from, a lot could happen. Such a concept is foreign to me, but I can see how it would work. Will this same small village dynamic work with the new connected world however? In my grandpa’s youth, villages apart literally meant worlds apart with little interaction in between. A trip to the town several miles down the road was the equivalent of me traveling from Washington DC to Chicago for school. It is interesting to see how in today’s globalize world culture can change almost as fast as the economy. Just a few hundred years ago it would have taking several generations to alter tradition. Today it may only take one.

Jerry wrote an email talking about how amazing it was to be immersed in another culture and learn from it. It made me think about what such an ‘immersion’ might be like for me. China was not a ‘completely new’ thing for me. In fact, I didn’t feel too awkward for the most part. Am I simply a very adaptable person or is the Chinese way of life deeper rooted in me than I had originally thought? In some ways, I wish I could articulate what it means to be Chinese and see the differences clearer. For me, it really is simply an amalgam. I live it out in so many ways so I don’t recognize it, and yet so many parts of it still puzzle me when I see it.

Some say you should marry someone of a different cultural background in order to better understand your own. Perhaps I should consider marrying a white girl or some other ethnicity. I’d certainly learn a lot more about myself and another culture through it. The funny thing is, such doesn’t mean I shouldn’t marry a Chinese girl. It simply means I shouldn’t marry a Chinese-American. How silly…

Xiao Lee is quite attractive in my opinion, but she certainly seemed very withdrawn around me while showing me Keelung’s downtown. I want to try and find that old picture of us playing in the zoo when I was 5. Dad says Taiwanese girls are apparently much more conservative then mainland girls. I don’t know where he gets the support for such a thought. He says mom was pretty walled up herself when he first met her.

“Marriage isn’t there for the purpose of learning, it’s there for the companionship and comfort,” my father explains to me. Forgive me for sounding cynical, but often I feel that marriage advice is the last thing he is credible to give. Then again, in other ways he would be in the best position as well if you want to talk about experience and learning from mistakes. This would make him the best person to ask.

While in Taipei, it always felt a little bit awkward when my father pointed out those places where he met my mother, where they first dated or kissed. It was hard to know whether to feel warm inside at the blooming of a romance that conceived me or to have my stomach turn over at the thought of the tragedy that would come to pass. My mother laments that the time they spent together was simply too short, around four months of dating mixed with two years of long distance letter writing while my father served in the military. When I asked my father why he married mom, he answered that it was simply the deepest relationship he’s ever had with a girl.

The amazing grace of God… how things have managed to come as they have. But it is not enough. My dream is to have my mother and father reconciled by the day I get married. They don’t have to be best friends or anything, but I pray the wounds will have been tended to and the air clearer. A time when genuine conversation can be exchanged without the sting of the past burning the heart with each word.

My father is a distant man. He has been distant my entire life and continues to be so despite our four week journey together, although I’d like to think the gap is slowly being closed. In fact, it is… and such is worth praising God for. Many thanks to the close friends who have been praying for me and, indirectly, for my father.

So the economy is rising so fast that it’s on the verge of meltdown. The new youth of China are spoiled yet self-motivated brats full of consuming power and fiery zeal to be successful. The arts are beginning to awaken from its long, government enforced hibernation. There is much that has been expressed and yet not nearly enough at the same time.

Free expression… how far can you let it happen without letting it actually becoming free from your control all together? We have free expression here in the States, too bad the majority of people waste it. The people of China are receiving their first taste of such, but its simultaneously being drowned out by a wave of consumerism that threatens to dull the senses in such a way that expression might not be necessary. It’ll be expression based on the trends and not on the issues.

Freedom of religion? We have that here in the States too, but likewise, most of us waste it. The spiritual vacuum that China carries is huge as not only are state controlled churches flooded but so are mosques and temples. There are only 8 government sanctioned churches in the entire city of Beijing… that’s absolutely absurd. I hear that the Chinese Christian council is holding a conference in Hong Kong this week too. Bet their spending their time telling the world everything is just a-ok.

That damn ol’ dynastic mindset… how credible is it today? Especially with the changing times and all? They say it’s just as strong as it has ever been. Such says that the Chinese are simply too use to being under control by someone one whether it be a dynasty or a communist party. Whatever the emperor says goes! Who needs democracy? The same type of argument was thrown around for the Soviet Union actually, but look where it is now?

The grand Tang dynasty was the golden age of Chinese history. During that time the world over brought tribute to a Chinese empire that competed with Rome for greatest civilization on the planet. The cultural heritage was thick and the nations surrounding China worked hard to catch up. In those days, China made tea distinctly by crushing the leaves and going through other processes to make finely shaped tea ‘chips.’ Today most Chinese simply plop the leaves in the cup and fill it with boiling water. I hear the Japanese are still quite anal about tea tradition however. They evidently got the tea culture from the Chinese and have done a better job at preserving it. Nonetheless, there are still great tea connoisseurs in China like my cousin in law in Keelung, Taiwan. He proudly uses his many teacups, kettles, and so on most precisely.

Let’s talk about distant family for a second. While in China I spent a good amount of time with three distinctively different families all connected to me in some filial manner: my mother’s family in sunny, coastal Qingdao, my step family in the summer sweat heat of Wuhan, and my father’s family in free press, business savvy Taipei. The connection between them was the art of Chinese family hospitality. This meant lots of food. Qingdao and Taipei flowed with an overabundant amount of fresh seafood while my step family in Wuhan treated us to three dinners capable of feeding a small village for a month. Along with the food is the history, both recent and distant. The stories of grandpas and grandmas came alive with the very buildings they once lived in. Their sepia shaded pictures hanging silently on the walls reminding me where I came from.

Today’s communist dynasty has been in effect for about 60 years now. They are working pretty damn hard to work themselves up to Grand Tang status. Perhaps the world isn’t as enamored with China’s splendor of culture and power anymore, but the nations are certainly fond of the river of cheap labor and exciting new business possibilities. I hope we aren’t wooed into an economic dependence with a oligarchy that ignores human rights abuses and continually destroys others to keep their own power. It would be shameful to see the States wagging their finger at China in disapproval with one hand while uncontrollably gathering their goods with the other.

Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan feel like three very different worlds, even their connection to one another under the banner of Chinese tradition is beginning to tear. I can understand why the PRC is so hasty to ‘liberate’ Taiwan and to quickly consume Hong Kong on principle alone. All the political and economic factors can be tossed out and it all boils down to racial pride. It’s about being Chinese.

‘I am Chinese.’

‘I am Chinese American.’

‘I am American.’

When it comes to identity, the bi-cultural card opens up new doors all the time while keeping shut the ones that might be the most comfortable. While wandering the streets of China’s congested cities, it was always a stretch for me. I looked the part only so much. To the observant Chinese, I was clearly a foreigner. The baggy clothes and the goatee were dead give aways. To the less observant, it would usually become clear after less than a minute of conversation. My accent still reeks of American tones, regardless of how good one might think my Chinese is. There is nothing worse than when someone is speaking to you fully expecting you to be just like them when you are not in the slightest.

My sister certainly doesn’t mind not fitting in. In fact, she’s happy to be rid of that dirty, crowded, and rude Chinese urban culture. She did not enjoy her time in the slightest. At the very least, Miranda Law knows that she is American through and through. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if those Chinese mosquitoes that she so abhorred had left her poor ankle and fingers alone. Every time I see a mosquito in China, I’ll kill it swiftly in memory of my sister.

So do I fit in China or not? Would I fit there for about three to four years while teaching English and studying for a masters degree in intercultural studies? My immediate response is ‘why not?’ After all, I still remember thoughts of being a teacher in late High School. I even interned my Senior year with my childhood super teacher, Mr. Jonathan Kieffer. Even more so, this short venture into the thick of Chinese culture has provided me with enough intrigue to write for pages on end (as in some ways I already have.) The fact that it’s somehow all connected to the marrow in my bones makes it even more attractive. It would mean the development of the truly bi-cultural self. One with an understanding of matters capable of being expressed and used to ways to benefit others. The ability to speak and act between two worlds is a talent most worthy of being developed. Understanding the foundations of what makes a cultural world tick apart from others is especially deep because it tries to explain the roots of what makes us human. The new China, with all its uncertainties, has captured my attention and, for better or worse, beckons me to understand it. Such a draw is not without a greater purpose however.

I have committed the entirety of my life to serving the one God I believe to be real above all things. This service in China would be the same. The religious run ins I’ve had in these short few weeks have blown open a puzzle that asks, “what does it mean to follow Jesus in China? And what does that mean for people who follow Jesus everywhere else?”

I heard that a friend working in Taiwan has decided to stay there a longer term. When questioned why, his response was along the lines of, “I feel awkward living as comfortably as I do in the United States.” Yea… something like that.

With all I’ve seen and already written, I suppose an important thing to do would be to connect the dots between it all. But I really can’t… it’s kinda like life that way. All mixed up with too many factors to consider and flesh out. In order to have things clearer and more understandable, you have to ask more specific questions. Those that are capable of systematically doing so are often praised as great intellectuals, but something is always lost when you simplify to understand. It’s in the connections and tensions that hold these apparently random thoughts together where one finds beauty hidden, where truth whispers your name and tells you how life really is, how you really are. It’s always somewhere in between that you can unmask the parts of life that actually matter.

Shoot.. . I write like a child.
In time I’ll put childish things behind me.