Fuzhou China… a strange port city with a downtown that lights up and reflects off the water. We arrived late at night after a terrible airplane transfer that we navigated well, each Pacrimmer taking their place, helping out and working as a team. Moments like those, all running through an airport following the person in front of you, picking up the slack, alphabetizing all 27 passports, picking up extra bags, these moments make it possible to see it so clearly… what an amazing trip I am on… with even more amazing people.
Our apartments in China are huge. Four of us share a flat bigger than any apartment I have even dreamed of living in. We don’t really have a proper kitchen but Anna, Rachel M, Jane and I could care less because we have… A WASHING MACHINE! These things are hard to come by and we could not be happier the first time we pool our laundry together and actually sort it! The shower doesn’t really stay warm for too long and the beds are squeaky but there was fruit and candy on our table when we arrived, and this instant homey feeling was priceless.
The next day we are taken to see the school that was hosting us. Fuzhou happens to be a Tacoma sister city and the school we are studying at is Hwa Nan Women’s College which was started by the Trimble family. This same family is the one that built Trimble Hall at UPS and gave me much of the financial aid that allowed me to come on PACRIM. The school is a series of buildings fairly close to our apartments and we have a classroom on the 3rd floor that overlooks the river and the downtown area.
For Thanksgiving Hwa Nan and a few of their best students had prepared a wonderful meal and event for us. Prior to our meal we all met our Hwa Nan buddies, girls at the top of their class who were paired with us to show us around Fuzhou. They were all very excited and could not wait to practice their English and hear all about our freedoms and challenges as young Americans. My buddy and I spent a bit of time at our first meeting talking about our similar interests. Christina is her English name and she is a very creative, beautiful person. She is an applied English major and although words sometimes failed her out of nervousness she was a very eloquent speaker and thinker. After a great traditional thanksgiving meal and a strange pumpkin tart we went out to walk down to the river and see the area a little bit. At this point we got over some of our initial stereotypes about each other. For instance… not all Americans are Christian and we do have Chinese food in America. Likewise I learned that Christina did not get to choose her major and that despite the one child policy she had 3 siblings.
Over the next few weeks we spent a lot of time in class learning about the cultural and political makeup of China. Christina and I also spent more time together and she took me to see some her favorite parts of Fuzhou and we had fish ball soup… which sounds terrible but reminded me a lot of matzo ball soup with its salty broth and flavorful dough. Fish balls are famous in Fuzhou and Christina could not have been happier when I actually enjoyed them. One particular day Christina and I, along with Marline, Rachel J and their buddies, found ourselves across town at a popular shopping area. We had an idea to get our photos taken together and this idea turned into a full day event. China (like many Asian countries) has colorful, cheery photo booths all over the place. Many of these are actually more like studios and have costumes, digital backdrops, props and so many other options. We found one we liked the look of and our Chinese friends spent ten minutes talking with the man in charge. We stood around taking it all in even though we had no idea what they could possibly be debating for so long. In the end we walked away with huge glossy sheets of photos of us doing very silly things and airbrushed to the max. The day was a successful one.
One night after a day spent reading huge packets of political commentaries and historical accounts about the opium trade a few of us decided to venture out on the city bus to find a certain restaurant. One of the young woman teachers (a recent UPS grad actually) took us under her wing for the evening and taught us the ropes of the bus and we arrived at the restaurant with no problems at all. Soon enough we had plates of Chinese dumpling filled with everything from mutton to wonderful Chinese green onion. We sat around the table talking about class and beer and all those good things until it was time to find a public bathroom. The meal was wonderful… the bathroom… not so much, but that’s China for you.
The apartment building we lived in was pretty much filled with pacrimmers so we decided that for Anna’s 23rd birthday our apartment was going to host an event. After much discussion and consternation we decided that the party would be half birthday and half costume party… the theme: Dance Party American History. Each pacrimmer was required to come dressed as a certain character from the history of America. In the end we had a greaser, a bag lady, a few hicks, an American Indian, a 1950’s housewife, coked out Mary Kate Olsen, characters from Back to the Future, Doug, and Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman and many other creative costumed individuals. We spent the evening drinking brandy and cokes and dancing and eating cheese (and by cheese, I mean an entire wheel of Gouda) and a cake made entirely of processed choco’ pies. The party was quite the success and the pictures surely prove this.
After awhile we all had to really get down to business concerning school. Our new professor who was out visiting from UPS, Karl Fields, expected a lot from us. His lectures were well planned and interesting so we read the materials he gave us cover to cover and prepared for class with questions, notes and definitions about everything from the opium war to communism. One weekend we took a trip to the historical sight of Gutien. This place is famous for a small building that housed the first meetings of the Chinese Communist Party. We sat outside on some stairs as Professor Fields lectured and this was perhaps the most distracting class I have ever been in. All around us people were taking pictures of us and running to sit in front of our group as their friends took their pictures. Motorcycles were whizzing in between us and Professor and even a tiny rooster decided to disturb the event and come and walk around Professors legs as he tried to compose his thoughts. In the end the lecture was a bit lost on us but the event was amazing. We were able to visit Mao’s office and view the small, airy room where the original concepts of a Communist China emerged. On this same day, not to far from Gutian, we also visited the traditional round houses that were being built in the early 1900’s. These houses served as tiny communities were everything from gardening to child rearing happened in the same large, multi-family house. These houses are built from very durable stone and have very few ground floor windows. In this way they are very safe and the community living within them could survive for months without leaving the safety of their home. The tour guide that took us around actually still lives in a round house today with her family. In addition to these visits we also had the worst Chinese meal of our visit, complete with many unidentifiable meats and spices.
When we got back to Fuzhou our time was coming to a close. We wrote a paper, studied for and took a test and all spent a little bit more time with our buddies before we headed for our next stop.
December 11 2008
I stood on the porch of the noodle shop, I stood one step off of the street and again wondered why there is such little sun here. I stood there eating an egg pancake dripping with hot sauce and studied the sky for any signs that sun would be coming soon. I took a rest. I wrote a paper. I peeled Asian pears with a very sharp knife. I did laundry and hung it all up on the front balcony. We drank beers and ate tuna and gouda sandwiches off of cardboard boxes we used for plates. We had a meeting about the PACRIM family, about issues and confrontation, but somewhere out in the farmland of Fujian province, somewhere behind a row of drying persimmons and roosters all fighting for space, it occurs to me that China is as big and vast as my future. It is as unknown and undetermined as my future, as confused and conflicted as my heart and mind… but somehow people still smile and hold babies, people still drink beer and pick persimmons, just as I keep traveling.
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