The In-betweens

I have now wound my way to Jinan, the city in which I will be teaching semi-permanently. I was given access to my apartment and all its resources in full (and at no cost to me, I might add). However, a typhoon that decided to hit the city shortly after I arrived has rendered me short on stories to tell. Hard to write an entire blog post when you’ve been sitting inside all day, washing clothes, cleaning, and thinking about the hand soap you’re inevitably going to buy. Sooooo I think at this point I should talk about all the tiny subtle differences between China and America. These are the things that wear on me all the time but usually aren’t significant enough to mention in a story or blog post. They are all the little things that happen in-between the major events of my journey.

Firstly, the dreaded Foreigner Gawk (as dubbed by yours truly). This is something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while now. Walking down the street, people will stop what they are doing to look at you. They will turn their heads as you walk by. Flies buzz around their open mouths. It’s an extremely weird feeling. Cars will slow down so the drivers can get a better look at you. People will not-so-subtly take your picture. I honestly have had my picture taken more times in the month I have been living in China than I have the rest of my entire life (prolly).

There are many perspectives to being such a spectacle. On one hand, it makes it literally impossible to blend into a crowd. With so many people gawking at you, it’s easy to feel like a zoo animal on display. Chinese people have no shame and no chill. They will point at you, whisper to each other, and call out the few English words they know with a smugness that can be infuriating. People will ask to take pictures with you so they can brag to their friends and family about meeting a foreigner. However, it can also make you feel special. I feel unique and take on the attitude of “how can I defy their expectations?” “How can I break down the American stereotype?” I understand that for many many people in China, they have never seen a white guy in person before. It is a special thing to see. Mayhaps, a foreigner with an ego would feel like a king and a foreigner with insecurities would feel like an outcast. Perhaps it’s all about attitude. I will be honest and say- being watched and stared down ceaselessly wears on me and reminds me of my fondness for privacy.

The next ‘In-between’ is the language barrier. This one may seem obvious, being in a new country and all, but I didn’t expect it to be as mentally draining as it is. I generally pride myself on being a good communicator but I have found in this past month in China that I often take language for granted. I have acted out sentences like a game of charades, I have used translators, and even just “gone deaf” and not used language at all. Ordering food is often a production and the frustration has actually kept me from eating an occasional meal. “I’m not hungry enough to deal with it tonight,” I would tell myself. This has led me face to face with my assumptions about people. I would walk into a restaurant (thinking I understand how restaurants work) and be insanely misguided. I once sat at a table for 20 minutes without a single person offering their help, not because they were rude but because I had incorrectly assumed their role in our social script. Aha!! Social script. That is a fantastic way to explain why China can be so frustrating. In America, I know (and thus can assume) enough about the regular social scripts that I could function at a high level with minimal to no verbal communication. It’s with this confidence that I go into a social setting in China and fall flat on my face. The social scripts are not the same, and thus require an even further verbal interaction to bridge the gap. While this is frustrating it’s also fascinating to me. I can’t help but laugh sometimes at the absurdity of how serious I take certain interactions. I will feel myself getting angry because I want chicken and they server does not understand and then I just laugh. I’ll pull up a picture of a cartoon chicken on my phone and mime myself eating it. Soon the server and I are both laughing. It’s easy to take things too seriously.

Currently I am trying to learn more Chinese through an app called Hello Chinese. It’s been recommended by several people I’ve met in China and I do feel I’m improving. It’s fun to be able to say a word or phrase you know to a native and the light turns on inside their head. That momentary bridge, where two people from very different cultures met on an understanding, is immensely encouraging. But Chinese is slow and hard to learn. There isn’t an alphabet to build a foundation of learning. Instead, it’s building vocabulary, making and practicing sentences, and filling in the gaps yourself. Plus there’s tones and grammatical disparities to get in your way. It’s definitely not a language you just “pick up” from being around it.

The third ‘In-Between’ is the emotional weight of both being totally isolated from my native culture as well as living on my own without a safety net. Now I’ve mentioned my newfound appreciation for the support I get back home, but a bitter side effect of that is homesickness, loneliness, and self-doubt. I am constantly reminded that I could be back home: warm, safe, and comfortable. I could pet my dog Maverick, I could eat a hearty home-cooked meal, I could play games and laugh with my family, but instead I made the decision to fly to the other end of the Earth to live for a year. I feel bad sometimes. I question myself and doubt my decisions. Should I have left America? Should I have gone straight to college instead? Will I be better off because of my decision? How much am I actually getting out of this? How many of my friends will still be there for me when I come back? How many won’t? It’s a dangerous thing, being in my head as much as I am (especially rained in, cooped in my barren apartment). Ultimately, I believe I will be better off wether this trip was the right decision or not. If it is the best decision I could have made, then I will gain new perspectives on the world, meet people/build meaningful relationships, and have an appreciation for other cultures that I didn’t have when I left. If it is not, then I will be experienced to the sorrow of regret, loneliness, and pity, and therefore will not only be able to cope with that again later in my life in a better, healthier way, but also treat people going through similar feelings with an empathy I didn’t have before.

Right now, I am going through the worst of my time in China thus far. I do not have a classroom to distract me. I am alone in my apartment with myself and my mind. I am doing my best to understand the bias of my perspective, and how it will likely skew my thoughts toward the ‘dramatic’. But I also am experiencing these emotions for the first time and I don’t know how to scale them. Am I the only person among my friends that feels this way? Is it better/worse for me because I am in China? Is this something that people feel constantly but learn to deal with? I know life isn’t pain free, but to what degree am I allowed to say “hey that kinda hurts”? All in all, I am ignorant to these kinds of questions. And while there are absolutely people out there who could help me figure them out, I also think that it’s important for me to experience first-hand the answer to some of those. I’ll never unlock the answers to my own existence if I am only ever hearing about the existence of others.

And on that cheerful note,