C - on absorbing (culture) shock

Sometimes I feel that China is a rubik's cube that I'm ever so slowly putting in order. Week by week, I notice that the signs and billboards are revealing more and more bits of their meaning and that conversations are becoming less and less unintelligible to me. It's a good feeling.

It's exhilarating to feel the blinders coming off, the clouds clearing up, the little mysteries being solved. Every little thing I figure out fuels my motivation to keep studying, keep practicing, keep trying. But then China gets in the way. Just when I start to feel even moderately adjusted, confident, and content, China finds some new way to offend, annoy, horrify, or confound me. And then I don't want to talk to ANY Chinese people, and if I don't want to do that, why would I study the language?

But the point of this entry is not to rant about Chinese culture. I do that vicariously through talktalkchina.com. The thought that's been brewing in my head all day is amazement at the people I know whose parents (or they themselves as children) emigrated from China or Korea. I knew in my mind that these cultures were different from that of the United States, but living here in China has caused me to grasp more fully the enormity of the fundamental incompatibility that exists between East and West.

At our old church in New Jersey (www.emetro.org), we met and became friends with a good amount of first-generation Americans. These people were proud of their Asian heritage and (rightfully) considered it an important part of their identity, but I didn't feel an enormous gulf separating us like the one that exists between me and the Chinese people here in China. Sometimes I feel like I have absolutely nothing in common with the people here.

Obviously my friends' parents felt they weren't completely incompatible with life in the US if they moved their family there, but I'm amazed at the open-mindedness both they and their children seem to possess in order to be able to function in both cultures. So, P, J, A/Y, S/P, S, K, Y, and anyone else I might have failed to think of, if you're reading this, please know that I think you guys are amazing. Right now I need to take a lesson from your great example!

D - Shenyang Concluded

We have returned from Xi'an and I'm still writing about Shenyang. When you have a lot to work on and a lot to say it's easy to get behind. I finally decided to use the Google Picasa Photo Albums so now we can just upload all our pictures and you can view them at your leisure. The general link to all our photos will be this and the Shenyang specific link is here.

I want to close out Shenyang with a video. It's the usual handheld herky-jerky-likely-to-make-you-ill variety, but it will give you a sense of the energy that a Chinese city can have. The energy is why many people come to China. Even in New York City, it's hard to find the same kind of excitement and adrenaline. The street in Shenyang featured hundreds of people milling about - shopping, talking, laughing, eating. Some western cities have one-off events that feature this level of atmosphere but in China it happens everyday. If you hate crowds, it can be maddening but if you let go of your personal space for a few minutes it can be truly exhilarating. The night markets in China are quite a sight. The peddlers have DVDs, socks, bras, candy, cell phones, terra cotta soldiers, and trinkets out the wazoo.

Without further ado, the video.