Animal Noises

I have officially completed my first week of language classes. 

At 7pm the night before my first class session I received a text from my friend, who is the Dean of International Students. "Sb and I will come tomorrow morning to fix your clothes line." A couple things should be noted before I continue:

1. It is common for Chinese to be ambiguous about time. "Morning" could mean any number of things, which means you need to either be prepared at all times or be alright with encountering strangers in your pajamas. 

1. The men were coming to fix my clothesline, which was non-existent when I arrived to the university. This task was imperative because dryers are non-existent here. 

1. I have no idea who "Sb" is.

The following morning (the day of my first language class) I had eaten, dressed, and cleaned my apartment by 7am. The Dean and a man in camo pants, who I am assuming was Sb, arrived at 9:10. They greeted me and brushed past quickly to the balcony to begin work. Sb began tearing down things, as the Dean and I sat in the dining room discussing the history of Hotel Del Coronado and the narcissism of my generation. Whilst Sb drilled loudly, I heard a faint knock at the door. Jo Laoshi stood a whole foot shorter than me with her platform heels on and small smile in the corner of her mouth.

We sat across from the Dean who was reading a textbook at the table, and began slowly working our way through what you might consider the Chinese alphabet. She gracefully pronounced the sounds like a song, and I echoed her with something that sounded more like farm animal noises. We worked diligently, pausing only for the sound of Sb’s drill to pass. After two hours had gone by I had a new clothesline, a mess of dust and trash covering my balcony, and had successfully butchered every Chinese word thrown my way.

We continued to meet every day for two hours in the morning. The second day there was a greater ease between Jo Laoshi and I. Maybe it was the lack of drilling noises or just that we were more comfortable with each other. She doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Chinese so we share our own language that is predominantly made up of hand gestures. By the end of the week my animal noises had begun to develop to sound more like a broken Chinese-speaking robot. But, today we were able to talk to one another in choppy sentences. We talked about work and children, and laughed at my poor pronunciation and redundant questions in the textbook. At the end of our secessions she always gathers her textbook and tea, turns to me with a smile and says, 明天见 (see you tomorrow).

Start of the Semester

I can’t believe it is already March, which means I’ve been here for a month now! Things are starting to feel relatively normal about living here. I define normal as being able to wake up in the morning and remember where I am.

The college is in full swing now. The students are back and classes have officially started. The campus seemed to transform overnight from a desolate quiet place to an organism alive with student bustling about. I was informed of this transformation promptly at 6:00 am (*please note that the sun doesn’t rise here until almost 9:00 am) when a loud speaker with cheesy commercial music and incoherent voices echoed boisterously throughout the university. I have no idea what they were saying but they seemed to be ushering in the new semester.

The new semester means new neighbors, who happen to be a hall full of teenage boys from a neighboring country. They are here with an exchange program between the college and their school back home. Why they have an exchange program for junior high and high school boys to come to college is beyond me. I have had limited interaction with them, but have been able to discover a few things about them. Their favorite past times include: smoking, singing in falsetto, slamming doors, “stomping the yard”, and spitting in the hallway. From speaking with some of the locals they are often considered rambunctious and rude. From my perspective, they are a source of humor with their ridiculous behavior (i.e. blaring Christina Aguilera songs) and they serve as a sort of antonym to my presence. We are both foreigners here and they create a wide distinction between myself and other guests of this country.  I hope to do my best to understand the people and the culture, to respect them, and be gracious and loving.

It’s not easy to forget you’re a foreigner here. The way most foreigners are treated appears to be an oxymoron. In some ways the people seem closed off and ambiguous, and in other ways they are generously inviting and curious. There are days where a storekeeper, after a frustrating attempt of asking a question, will shake her head and say, “Foreigners, they never understand!” And there are other days, when van-taxi drivers will offer me the front seat, smile at me kindly and go out of his way to assist me when the van eventually broke down. Sometimes these things happen within the span of the same day.

Two common occurrences of my day are: prolonged stares in my direction and mockingly being shouted “hello!” at from strangers. I have narrowed the local’s reaction to my presence here into 4 basic facial expressions.

1.     Disbelief: this is the expression of shock and awe and at times makes me feel like I’m a costumed character at Disneyland. It is often accompanied with a dropped jaw and whispering amongst a group. I mostly receive this look from small children and junior highers.

2.     Disdain: this expression is the typically a prolonged evil eye. This look is generally only given to me by the elderly in the community and is usually accompanied with a gesture of crossing to the opposite side of the street.

3.     Snickering: a self-explanatory expression usually given by groups of people.  This expression often makes me wonder if I have something on my face, my zippers down or something else of embarrassing nature.

4.     Discreet: the most rare, yet the expression I cherish the most. This is when people pretend not to stare at me until I pass them, but if I glance back I’ll find them staring. I think this has only happened twice.

*Please note these are just generalizations from my limited perspective. Obviously I can’t fully read what their faces mean and typically their expressions are a mixture of several of the ones listed above.

In the beginning the stares and whispers bothered me and resulted in me walking quickly through town with my head down. Now I’ve grown quite accustom to it and simply ignore it. Since I’ve been here my reactions to the culture have been as mixed as people’s expressions toward me. On days when its difficult to be here or I don’t understand something about the culture I enjoy thinking that my Father is the Father of these people. He knows them fully—language, quirks, emotions, and all.

Below are just a few pictures of the place I call home here:

My Living Room

My Bedroom

My Wall of Encouragement: letters and pictures from home