Homework: Another Excuse To Blog

Alexis Allison

Humanities 295

Jade Buddha Temple Reflection

October 4, 2011

When They Ask Me to Describe It, This Is What They Get

            The word “it” is an abstract concept, a pronoun describing an object, event, location, person, idea—something indefinable when left alone, a one-size-fits-all mask capable of covering any noun that exists. It can refer to a peppermint, a dog, a raincloud. It can be an animal, a vegetable, a mineral, a sandwich. It can be a feeling, a stubbed toe, a patch of corduroy: It hurts. It’s green. It may very well rain.

            Naturally, then, when asked to describe it, I could write for an eternity of hand cramps and still never come close to finishing it. For now, I will choose to describe one specific it, and hopefully capture even a snippet of it.

It is the Jade Buddha Temple.

It is swarming with incense and ash and rain. I see a woman in the haze, across the courtyard, and follow her with my eyes. She kneels before a Buddha with an angry face and prays. She stands and walks down a line of statues, balancing before each one a coin, so that eventually every Buddha possesses a little upright offering. I wonder what she is thinking.

The monks are wearing mustard robes with Nike socks. I see the Swish when they walk. Through the courtyard, surrounded by Spanish-speaking tourists and worshippers of the Jade Buddha.

In the center, another woman is pressing a coin into the side of a giant urn with her right pointer finger, pressing and holding. She puts the coin in her purse, pulls out another one and repeats. Others around her move as if she does not exist, grabbing handfuls of coins out of their pockets and throwing them into the urn. If they miss, they do not pick the coins up again. The floor is strewn with coins that missed.

The temple is old. It is old, and yet, it is new. Each room is musty and red and green, with ancient carvings and ornate designs and golden Buddhas. The rooms have air conditioning, too. And everyone is coming and going, going and coming, and I wonder what each one is thinking and feeling. Their faces reveal nothing.

And here I am, amidst it all. The incense smells like honey and urine and burns my throat. I am not a tourist, nor am I a worshipper. I am an observer, and I feel nothing other than a quiet curiosity about these people who live both in the past and in the future, these people who worship a god made of jade.  I wonder what they would say about my church – a group of broken people in a high school auditorium, with a band, a cup of wine, a loaf of bread, and a God who lives but can’t be seen.

I’m sure it would be hard for them to describe, too.

The Economic Lessons of Peanut Butter

Consider the following situation:

You, your parents, your spouse, and your child are having a lovely picnic outing on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Suddenly, the boat begins to capsize, and you realize that you must rid the boat of extra weight in order to survive. Therefore you must choose whether or not to toss your parents (as a unit), your spouse, or your child overboard to save yourself and the rest of the family. Self-sacrifice is not an option. Also, you are too far from shore to swim in. And there are hungry sharks surrounding the boat. And the boat. Is. Sinking. Now.

Whom do you choose?

My classmates and I were confronted with this scenario as soon as we entered our first humanities class on Tuesday. I despise questions like this, because they make me feel like a terrible person, and they ignore physical properties, like the fact that a child weighs significantly less than adult parents, and honestly the question itself is rather irrelevant because I don’t own a boat. And I get seasick.

But, after much mumble-grumble and ho-humming, I chose my parents. Eighty percent of the class, in fact, chose their parents. Despite the fact that I am a terrible person, I must say I am a logical one. I cannot imagine throwing my child overboard, so he/she is completely safe. In addition, I am in a covenant relationship with my spouse, and I have become one with him, and I have left my father and mother for him. Furthermore, I could not remove my child’s father from his or her life. And, to conclude, mother and father have had beautiful, purposeful, long lives of pursuing Christ. And they would never ask me, my husband, or their grandchild to die in their place.

After the question had concluded with “parents” as the top choice, we were all feeling bad about ourselves. And then the instructor got to the point. As Americans, our natural conclusion is to choose our parents. However, if the same question is asked in a predominantly Asian culture, the majority of the answers will be “child” first, “spouse” second, and “parents” last. Apparently, it is completely out of the question to throw the parents overboard, just as it is completely out of the question to throw the child overboard in our society.

The wisdom of the older generations is more valuable than youth or marriage covenants, and parents expect their children to care for them as they age. It is perfectly common for parents to move in with their children after their children obtain an independent residence. Nursing homes and assisted living areas are essentially nonexistent, and rather offensive. The Chinese revere their parents, just as they revere their ancestors.

This exercise, although morbid, provided another dimension to my international experience. Chinese culture is a deep well, and I want to explore it and taste it.

Here are some other things I’ve noticed…

1. The One Child Policy in China basically states that every family in China is only allowed to have one child (obviously...) due to population control. If a mother has a second child, the family has to pay a $50,000 fine to the government. Otherwise, almost everyone gets an abortion. My heart hurts just thinking about it. There are, however, a few loopholes to the law. For instance, if the 2nd child is born in Hong Kong or anywhere outside of China and then brought back in to China, the fine is cancelled. Also, some wealthy families choose to just pay the fine up front so they can have another child. Or, families with a 2nd child don't register the child, so he or she is not a citizen...which means he or she can't go to school or possess any citizen privileges. Oh, but if one single child marries another single child, then they can have two children (so the One Child Policy almost rotates generations, in a way). And the adoption process is incredibly restricted. For example, a person can only adopt a child if he or she is married and over 40 years old and has no other children.

And so there is this whole generation of single children, and they all have SO much pressure to live up to their parents' expectations, and if the child is a girl, and if she gets married, she has to take care of both her parents AND her husband's parents, as well as her child and her traditional house-keeping chores. Women in the work force must fight both the system and sleep-deprivation to be successful.

2. Chinese meals are round-table affairs, with one menu per table – a tradition that creates much angst in our group of 30 students. This single menu custom stems not from the lack of menus available, but rather from the Chinese tradition of community (as opposed to the U.S. inclination toward individualism). Typically, one person orders food for the whole table (thus the single menu) and the dishes are shared collectively. There is no private property, or dish, in these restaurants. 

3. The effects of Communism pervade even the smallest details. The most relevant to my current situation is that, so far, I have only discovered one brand of peanut butter here, and it is not Jif. Little lessons like these help me understand the Chinese government so much better: Communism = Lack of competition = No Jif. What a deprived people who know not what they lack in peanut butter selection!

A Homework Essay Disguised As A Blog

Alexis Allison

Humanities 295

First Impression Paper

September 27, 2011

            The opportunity to live in China elicits several desires within me. I would like to understand street signs. I would like to ride an elephant. I would like to incorporate Asian dresses into my wardrobe. All of these are good and true and noble endeavors, but for now I am going to focus on two specific goals and one general goal that can encourage me to be fully present and active in Shanghai. Primarily, I would like to meet with a native Chinese speaker at least twice a month to practice mandarin conversation. This relationship would give me a truer glimpse into “real” China, as well as into the lives of the people who live here. Secondly, I am interested in investigating Chinese current events. I have insufficient (as in, zero) knowledge on the happenings in Chinese politics, the media, and both foreign and domestic affairs, and I am not satisfied with this lack of information. And finally, I want to plug myself into Shanghai Community Fellowship Church, with special emphasis on the foreign students ministry. I want to know the stories of the international young adults, and I want to be a part of their community of Christ-followers already active in Shanghai.

            The opportunity to live in China has also resulted in fresh discovery and observation of the world. Milk is not necessarily refrigerated here. Waiters and waitresses do not receive tips. Girls wear white hose with white shoes, as opposed to black hose with black shoes. Whitening, instead of tanning, salons abound. Copyright laws and traffic laws and hole punches are nonexistent. The sky seems farther away here.  Girls hold hands with girls and boys hold hands with boys, though not in a romantic way. Everyone seems to mind his or her own business in public, and faces on the street are often expressionless. The Chinese barely open their mouths when they speak. Starbucks has an overwhelmingly Western smell.

            I love it all.

            There may be times in the near future when I experience minor panic attacks due to “culture shock” that will leave me ashamed of my behavior. I am certain that, on a day when I’m not particularly chipper, I will want to throw my chopsticks at an unsuspecting Shanghainese man and demand a fork on pain of death. Or I will desperately need to see the sunrise, or the stars, or the skyline, or the sky, for that matter, and I will seriously consider hopping the next boat to America so I can do so.

            And then I will take a deep breath, calm down, and keep loving it all.

            I am finally navigating a culture unlike my own, a culture with green tea Oreos and rich family loyalties, in a city where universities have 30 floors and hotels have 47. For the first time, I am able to understand the world as a globe, rather than as a snippet of the Americas. I see the unbelievable wealth and comfort available in the United States now, and I marvel at the development of my native country, a country that seems like a toddler in comparison to this ancient place called China. A toddler with an incredibly high standard of living.

            China is old and deep, and I am fascinated by its long memory, and its expansion into the future. It is a mysterious country, both limiting and liberating, and I am gulping it in as if it were a cup of hot chocolate. I look forward to the adventures ahead with relish, and a little anxiety, and certainty that I will never be the same again. 

Teaspoon of China

Let me spoon feed China to you.

Shanghai itself is massive, 8 times the size of NYC, and full of technicolor lights and vibrant skyscrapers with experimental architecture. It basically feels like I'm inside a video game, or at least a ridiculous amount of candy stores. Elderly people swarm the local parks early in the morning to do Tai Chi. Telephone numbers have 8 digits. The sidewalks have dimpled strips in them so that blind people can feel where they are going (which is an extremely considerate touch, in my opinion). There is a store here that copies and binds books for such a low price (as in, I took some textbooks today to have copies made...something that is definitely illegal due to copyright laws in the U.S....so I am trying to understand and discern the relationship between legality and morality, and what is right and wrong for myself in a country where basically anything goes). I also encountered a store called the Scent Library, a perfumery, which sells aromas such as Play Doh, Dirt, Grass, Pink Lemonade, Paperback, Rain, Baby Powder, Earl Grey Tea, Smelly Boys, etc. What a beautiful concept. 

Most of the desserts are made with mango or black sesame or green tea or red bean (seriously, red BEAN), with very little chocolate involved, and very little good taste involved too, haha. The other day I found a Dairy Queen, so immediately I purchased an Oreo blizzard…I’m not sure I’ve tasted anything so satisfying and magical. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Chinese blizzards don’t fall out of the cups when turned upside down, either.

On the subject of food, I have experienced a vast array of—shall we say—interesting concepts. The Chinese have mastered economic cooking – they allow nothing to go to waste! There are jellyfish dumplings, and fish head soup (a delicacy), and fried chicken feet, and chicken gut soup, and chicken blood soup, and chicken necks, and chicken cartilage, and chicken heads, and sliced mutton, and lotus petals, and smushed crab, and frog legs, and tarantula legs, and mooncakes with egg yolk, and green tea Oreos, and mango shaved ice. The beverages match the city – colorful and exotic and strange. I drank fruit tea the other day, an orange concoction brimming with apples, giant purple grapes, kiwis, and oranges. Presentation is key. Apparently, the Chinese are very adept at deception, and can therefore make food appear devastatingly delicious when it is, in fact, not. For instance, a seemingly chocolate and caramel scone at a bakery down the street turned out to be a pork roll. Ahaha…I still laugh out loud at that story. And then, a friend of mine ordered some sort of apple berry tea, which arrived in a mammoth flagon of a cup, only to discover that over half of the cup was hollow and contained only a portion of the drink it appeared to contain.

In non-food related news…

Several nights ago I went with a group of my fellow students to a giant shopping/night life street, where we found a "guide" to take us to the underground "fake" markets in China. This basically consisted of darting through dark alleys, behind shaggy curtains and into bright white rooms FILLED with Louis Vuitton, Coach, Rayband, Rolex, Lacoste, Nike, etc. products. Purses! Watches! Sunglasses! Shoes! All fake, all incredibly expensive looking.

And. We bargained.

My friend Molly bought a gold Rolex watch that would cost about $8000 in the U.S. for THIRTY dollars.

Ha.

We also haggled a Louis Vuitton bag from 32,000 yuan (Chinese currency) to 340 yuan. Good deal.

I tell you this because it was rather interesting, and partly hilarious, and just a good slice of China, though I actually care NOTHING about all of those brands and wouldn't buy their products (real or fake) if they were for 0 dollars. Haha.

Well. That is enough for now:) More updates will follow on various aspects of my new life here…stories, happenings, heart issues, thoughts, etc. Read on to find out!

The Sky is Darker Here

Every morning I wake up and I write “light bearer” across the base of my thumb, and every morning I wonder if I should just go ahead and get it tattooed to save pen ink. Then I think of my mom, who would bellow something about needles and hepatitis C, and I decide to postpone the decision for one more day.

And yet, this morning I discovered a better reason to forgo the tattoo.  As the ink washes off each night, every morning I have to consciously choose whether or not to rewrite “light bearer” on my thumb. And to choose this, I must daily decide that I will represent and pursue Christ in my thoughts and deeds and words. After all, I cannot write “light bearer” on my thumb without being fully alive as a bearer of Light. The brokenness of the world is too desperate for even one “Christian” to misrepresent Christ.