The Move

My apologies to blogger.com, but I have recently moved over to Wordpress. No complaints, just where my other blog ended up!
I hope you will continue to follow me, I also hope to write something soon. Free time to blog is a sweet privilege I hope to indulge in again.

My blog is now: Tangled Culture Kid

My other blog is: Jonesing for Order

I would love for you to check them both out.
So long, blogger.com. Have a wonderful, successful life

好久不见!

One of the downsides of having such a cleverly specific name to a blog appears to be the hesitation of being unwilling to blog about anything unrelated. Either I'll get over it, or it will take another nine months for me to post again. I suppose we shall all see. 


I am slowly learning I will never be able to let go of China. People would ask me all the time if I planned on moving back to China and my answer was always no. Psychology is my passion and psychology, in English, tends to be easiest to find a job in English speaking countries. Chinese has basically been seeping out of my brain word by word due to it's lack of use. 


Surprise! 


My suitmate was switched last minute and to my pleasant surprise, my suitmate is now a Chinese freshmen. 
Friday was my first day of high school observations for the semester and to my pleasant surprise, a Chinese exchange student from Beijing was also experiencing his first day at Walker Valley. 


My fiance and I have been discussing what to do after graduation. Our plans currently include this: do something exciting for two years before hitting the books again. Exciting place, exciting food, exciting experiences, exciting challenges, closet size apartment and any job that will start paying off student loans. Surprise! Fiance has been bringing up China a lot. Between connections I already have in China and the connections we've made at school, it wouldn't be hard; and it will be a great adventure. Which is all we're looking for - adventure. 


On top of this, I had let go of teaching Psychology at a high school. Sadly, no one wants to hire just a Psychology teacher. Instead, they let the coaches teach it.  
Last week, one of the professors told me about how it would be possible to get licensed to teach Chinese at a high school level by only taking a few classes and then take the Praxis in it. Being licensed to teach Chinese would make me more valuable to a high school - even if they are two random classes not always taught. This would greatly increase the probability of me getting a job as a high school teacher. 


Currently, plans are a swirling mess or confusion hovering above my head. It's not overwhelming and it's not oppressive. It's just there. Every time I think I know where life is headed, something else shows up and makes me question everything I've put in the unavailable box. 


God, you've left my heart seeking and questioning and I pray for the strength to keep options open. I have a Beijing sized hole in my heart and I am waiting to figure out how it will fill up. 

Year of the Rabbit

Tonight China will be filled with colors, leaving trails of red paper throughout the streets. Families will focus not only on the past, but also on the future and the ways in which they can secure prosperity for generations to come.

While I won’t be able to join in the many scrumptious festivities of Spring Festival, I will be having some of my friends over to celebrate. We’re going to have jiao zi, Jay Chou, white rabbits, and fu characters everywhere. It should be fantastic.

A few days ago a friend of mine asked how I decide how much of China to share with people. To be honest, I had never sat down and thought about it and began to examine the delicate balance of being open about my life and not overwhelming people with my life experiences.

I can easily say I have yet to master this skill.

There are still days where all I want to do is experience China. I let random Chinese words slip. I crave Chinese food. Drink green tea. I even stand too close to people. But the days where I’m comfortable with America are getting more and more frequent. I’m finally getting the flow of things.

In talking to my friend about this balance, the idea of shared experiences came to mind. The more and more shared experiences I gain in the States made it easier and easier to maintain a relationship and a conversation. Shared experiences allow for a flow in conversation that doesn’t require you to go back and explain circumstances which allow the story to make sense. China stories sometimes involve some lengthy explanations. Unfortunately, in my case this leads to incoherent narrative and people fail to even understand the basic story I was attempting to tell. Every shared experience gives you something to talk about and something to connect you not only to the relationship but also to a cultural event.

My biggest fears are that it will seem like I’m bragging or that I’m unrelatable. Experiences that may feel so normal to me can feel so strange to others (and the other way around). When I share stories from my time in China it is because I want the person I’m speaking with to be able to understand another part of who I am. My stories are simply pieces of my life I’m choosing to illuminate. And yet when I share stories, I many times feel I have to edit the story to include as little of what made the experience worth sharing as possible. Those elements that made it unique stick in the persons ears and their eyes turn to a giant Communist flag and they don’t hear the part about me. I want people to hear me in my stories. I want people to know I’m not trying to be special, but am instead trying to relate.

Tomorrow my goal is to showcase my love of Chinese culture in a way that will allow those I have chosen to be a part of my life to love what I love. I want them to understand a little bit more of who I am and the culture I was surrounded by. I want them to see the Chinese have their traditions and preferences and strange taste in music just like those in America do. I want them to see a little of China through my actions, and keep the fireworks on the screen instead of blocking their vision due to unknowns.

再见, 亲爱的

圣诞快乐

This Christmas, my mom had to be back in the States with her family due to her mom's health problems. Christmas just isn't the same without the woman of the house to bring Christmas goodies - I mean, cheer.

My dad, brothers and I managed to get up for caroling at the school, attempting sugar cookies while being indecisive about Christmas music, and then decided to go out to eat. Turns out, one Christmas meal is all this motherless family choses to handle.

We made a cultural discovery today. Turns out, Christmas Eve is date night in Beijing. We meandered our way over to the foreign side of town, and eat at TGIF. We attempted Tex-Mex, but when we entered, we were informed that they only had two meal options - turkey and steak, and it would cost an arm and a leg. My dad informed the waitress that this was a mexican restaurant, and she seemed truly shocked as if she had never noticed.

Once we got to TGIF, we were met with couple after couple dressed in their club clothes. It's interesting to see how the materialism of Christmas is capable of sinking into other cultures and yet they fail to grasp the full meaning of what they're celebrating. I'm sure we do the same thing in the States.

New goal: Learn more about holidays I celebrate.

Ice Cream Perspective

Earlier this week I was given the opportunity to speak to my Gateway class about the importance of having a global perspective. While I may seem like an expert on the subject, and certainly have a slew of global stories, I had never stopped to think about why it was so important.

Here is what I decided.

Having only experienced one culture is like only reading essays about why chocolate ice cream is the best kind of ice cream there is. Sure, there are a million reasons why chocolate ice cream is amazing and the authors of those essays may have some very valid points. Chocolate is an aphrodisiac, it can cure a sweet tooth, and goes great with some caramel.

But if you take their word for it and are never willing to try other flavors, you’ll be missing out on a whole lot of joy. (I recently had a pumpkin pie blizzard that was seriously fall goodness in a cup.) If you take the time to learn about other flavors and take the time to experience them, you may find you enjoy all of the thousands upon thousands of them out there. Although, personally I’m not sure how anyone can enjoy green bean ice cream; not because I think it can’t taste good to people but purely on the principle of the matter.

Each culture has unique values and advantages. Each culture expects different things from those participating. Each culture even has its own rate of acceptance. We shouldn’t discount another way of doing something simply because we are used to something else. There is nothing actually better about the left or the right side of the road, we have simply created a preference for that location.

Unfortunately, conflict makes people uncomfortable. Personally, conflict is usually physically painful for me. Conflicts between cultures creates culture shock and ethnocentrism. We experience something different and we haven’t quite learned how to process it yet, because it may vary from our own values and beliefs, and so we act out against it. I used to hate having nuts in my ice cream, that crunch mixed with the smoothness of the cream and all that healthy stuff was ruining the experience. I tried an ice cream a little while back that I didn’t know had nuts in it, and was actually surprised by how it tasted. I’m no longer afraid of having nuts in my ice cream. Culture can take a few taste tests to get used to, and maybe you’ll never quite be able to swallow it without washing it down. But at least you will have tried it, experienced it, found out why others may enjoy it, and learned a little something about the taste buds your culture has developed in you.

再见, 亲爱的

Choosing Fleas

Some days I wish I was more creative, more mysterious, more complicated.

Other days I wish I was more content, more open, more simple.

I had the privilege of getting up on a Saturday morning simply because I had something I desired to do with someone whose time I frequently crave. No work, no service Saturday, no homework, just the choice to spend a Saturday morning with my boyfriend.

There’s such a joyous freedom in doing something by choice.

Which has made me impatient for the day I no longer have an extensive list of required readings and can simply enjoy a book again.

Back to my story.

Matt and I decided to go to the Sweetwater flea market. World’s longest indoor flea market.

I feel as if a flea market has been established as a judge free zone where you are allowed to come as you please and the “pet friendly” guarantee is taken very seriously. The moment we turned into the parking lot we found ourselves waiting for a lady with eight dogs, each dressed in a print outfit. Laughing over this sight quickly turned into the jaw dropping and glances of “you better be seeing this” as an old man took his precious time crossing the gravel. Although, if I were walking with a cane, smoking a pipe and wearing a civil war uniform I would feel I had the right to take as much of everyone else’s time as I pleased. Of course our jaws quickly started moving again as we returned to laughing and came to the realization that today was going to be a truly great day.

Along the side of the parking lot were a few stores filled with Communist medals, swim suits, saddles and the typical creepy antiques. You know, the ones that couldn’t possibly be purchased by anyone but the creepy cat lady who has multiple cabinets filled with an array of collections. (Either that or the indie chick who fancies the creepy cat lady cute.)

Once inside the flea market, the variety of merchandise continued to expound, with a surprising amount of socks being sold. I suppose fall is upon us and we must keep our toes snuggly. I shall refrain from judging.

How pleasant it must be to be so comfortable with a place and a culture to show up however you like. Dogs in strollers. Spoon jewelry. Deep fried moon pies. Long scraggly beards. Old books. Country music. Sweet, roasted cashews. Confederate lamps.

It was a simple day, sprinkled with fall rain, and I loved it. =)

再见, 亲爱的

Freshman Autobiography

For our freshman orientation class at Lee, we are required to write a two page autobiography. Now that I am a teaching assistant for one of these classes, I decided to go back and read how I viewed myself during that transition period.

Here is what I wrote:

"Something about walking into a room full of people I don’t know makes me put on the mask of someone who is shy. My eyes dart around the room for a seat on the outside, I slowly sink into my chair hoping to remain unnoticed, I search around to see how everyone is sitting in order to mimic their actions, and I nervously laugh at jokes. But I don’t act that way because I am shy. I act that way because I know I’m an outsider. Being a [P]’s kid, a [M]’s kid, and a homeschooler has shaped me into someone who will never quite fit in – at least on the inside.

My first shove towards the outside of society was being born to a pastor and his wife. Although my dad only pastored a church until I was six he still does a lot of pastoral work and I still receive the pressure to be the perfect Holy Ghost filled PK. While there are a lot of pressures and expectations, living under a pastor has placed a lot of characteristic in me that I hope I never let go of. Ever since I was little, whenever I would go anywhere without my parents, the last thing they would say to me as they said goodbye was “Be a blessing,” and I still haven’t let go of that phrase. My parents have instilled in my brothers and me a desire to encourage those around us and propel them towards God.

By the far the biggest and most significant shove was my parents’ decision to move to China as [M]s when I was six. If there was ever a place to be an outsider, it’s as an American surrounded by 1.3 billion Chinese. China’s word for foreigner is “wai gua ren” which literally means “outside country person” which I think fits me perfectly. Between being in China during the school year and America in the summers, it felt like there was never really a place to call home and to this day I have to pause to think before I answer someone when they ask where I’m from. Living overseas taught me a lot of things about fluidity, transition, tolerance, flexibility, and the value of having a global perspective. I’ve learned how to be a respectful outsider – someone who can insert themselves into a culture without making a huge wave in the lives of those around me. While I have learned to understand anything in motion, I have trouble understanding stability sometimes. I expect constant change and new places.

But if there ever was a stereotypical outsider it would be the homeschooler. As soon as anyone hears I’ve been homeschooled my whole life they expect me to have no social skills, sleep in all day, and be the next Albert Einstein. I can guarantee none of the above apply, especially the last one. Homeschooling has given me a great love for my family. When you’re around your family twenty-four seven you learn a lot about bonding, personal space, and how to drown out noises. You also learn how to search out places and people who fit you best because you’re not constantly surrounded by people your age. Unfortunately there are a lot of homeschool stereo types I have to live down, and I will have to admit, it feels nice when people tell me I’m pretty cool for being a homeschooler.

From being a pastor’s kid, to a [M]’s kid, to a homeschooler, I will always feel a little like an outsider. I will always have parts of me that no one will understand, and expectations I will always have over me. But all of the lessons I have learned from being those things have shaped me into who I am, and although who I am has a twinge of weird to it, I would never trade it for all the feelings of being someone who completely fits in."

再见, 亲爱的