Huashan mountains viewed through the clouds.

Hiking China’s Sacred Mountain Hàushān: A Journey to Healing Grief, Part. 1

Published on October 30, 2025October 30, 2025 by An Accidental Vagabond2 Comments

It took us another eight hours of climbing vertical steps through damp vertical caves and along precarious edges of steep cliff sides. Sho Boa was our guide. He wanted to race to the top of the mountain, often criticizing Xiang Kai and me if we wanted to sit for a moment, or if we were moving too slowly. I was grateful to have Xiang Kai on my side. 

Sho Boa claimed he was the true hiker among us. He was climbing the mountain to defeat it. His desire to reach the peak and reach the bottom in the fastest time possible meant he was a conqueror. I’m not this person. I wanted to sit and reflect and bask in nature and observe the multitudes of people around me. I wanted to meditate and reflect. Mt. Hua was one of China's 5 sacred mountains. I wasn't from China, and when would I ever be back? I wanted to absorb it all in, but between the enormous crowds and Sho Boa's constant  insistent pushing, hiking Hua Shan felt more like a military drill than a joyous hike. I didn’t know what was going on in Xiang Kai’s mind except that he wanted to stop and sit as much as I did. From time to time, Xiang Kai would shoot me look of irritation and disdain. "Ignore him," he’d say, "let’s sit, make him wait."

My Mother Died While I Was Teaching in China

It isn’t easy to lose a parent under any circumstance. Whether you lose them when you are young, or when they are very old. Whether you lose them to a long lingering illness or to a sudden accident. Each type of death results in the same thing. Your parent is dead and death is for the living to deal with. If I could have chosen how my mom died, I would have picked that she lived at least to her 80’s, and that she had a full joyful life, and that old age had finally decided that it was time for her to go. I would have sat beside her, holding her hand, telling her that I was going to be fine and that she could let go. That’s what I would have chosen. We don’t get to choose.

My mother was found dead on the floor of her bedroom. I wasn’t at her bedside. I was in China getting ready for my classes when I checked a Facebook message telling me to Skype a friend of hers: “that it was important”. Her life had been difficult and full of heartbreak, loss, grief, and addiction. Her greatest fear was to die alone and that is exactly how she died. The death certificate said it was a methamphetamine overdose. My only sliver of consolation regarding her death is that it may have been quick and painless. I hope she didn’t have a moment to know she was dying, so that she didn’t know she was alone at her death. We don’t get to choose. We get what we get.

A peek of a mountain top through the clouds from 1,000 meters up. — 1,000 meters halfway point to the peak.

Invited to Hike Huashan

Three or four months after my mom died, my friend and co-worker, Wu Sho Boa, suggested that we should go to Huashan together. Huashan is one of the 5 sacred mountains of China. It sounded like a great opportunity, so I agreed to go. He invited his friend Liu Xiang Kai, who I called Xiang Kai (Xiang sounds like Shee-ang) to join us. I decided that I would bring some of my mother’s ashes and scatter them at the top. Sho Boa asked me why I would want to do such a strange thing, after all, my mother was not Chinese. I told him it was because she never got to travel anywhere in her life, and now in her death I could take her to a spiritual mountain peak in China and scatter her ashes to winds that would eventually take her around the world. Sho Boa still thought it was silly, but he let it go.

The Five Sacred Mountains

Located in Shaanxi Province, not too far from Xi’an (place of the terra cotta warriors), Huashan is the Western Mountain of the 5 sacred mountains of China. The five mountains are Taishan (泰山), the East mountain in the Shangdong province; Hengshan (衡山), the South mountain in the Hunan province; Hengshan (恒山), ( not a mistake it has the same name in pinyin, but is different in Chinese) the North mountain in the Shanxi province; Songshan (嵩山) the Center mountain in Henan province; and Huashan (華山) the West mountain in the Shaanxi province. During my first month in China, I went to Sōng Shān while visiting the Shaolin Temple, but at the time I was not aware of the mountain’s sacred significance.

There are many sacred mountains in China for example Buddhism has four of its own sacred mountains, and Taoism also has four of its own sacred mountains. All of these mountains have been places of pilgrimages throughout Chinese history, and are the subjects of many paintings and poems. The Five Sacred Mountains, also called The Five Great Mountains, have been connected to imperial pilgrimages performed by Chinese emperors. The mountains are connected to the Supreme God of Heaven and the Five Highest Deities. Which may explain many of the stunning temples and hermitages built on the side of Mt. Hua.

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Huashan, Huà Shān, Hua Mountain, Mount Hua, and “number one steepest mountain under heaven”, however you say the name, it is all the same glorious mountain. Huà in Chinese means flower and shān means mountain, so the literal translation is flower mountain or 華山 flowery mountain. It is said to get its name from the five mountain peaks that look like a lotus flower.

Huashan was close enough to travel to in a day, but proximity does not equal facilely. Its reputation as one of the five sacred mountains is “China’s most dangerous”. It’s difficult to find exact numbers as to how many casualties and deaths may have occurred on Mount Hua, but after my own experience hiking it, I can assume that the number could be relatively high. Sho Boa said that you can’t find any numbers because the government doesn’t want the public to know the casualty rate because they don’t want to deter tourism. I don’t know if he meant city, provincial, or country government, but with the sketchy conditions, and population of inexperienced climbers (myself include), and the trash left behind, a little negative advertisement might be a good thing.

My Own Sacred Pilgrimage

As an outsider to China, it was easy to attach myself to the romantic connotations associated with ancient Chinese traditions. Taoist beliefs and Buddhist rites of passage have a mystic allure to a foreigner like myself. It was easy to imagine myself like the female version of Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet or Bill Murray’s, Larry Darrell in The Razor’s Edge.

I envisioned myself reaching the peak of the mountain. In a moment of reverie sunlight breaks through the clouds or rises over the crest. I am filled with a sense of peace, gratitude, and a higher understanding of what life is about. Questions as to why we are here, and why I am here are answered. Then I feel a dawning acceptance of my mother’s death. I understand why she died like she did, and why I wasn’t able to save her. I know that death like life is beautiful.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, I did not reach this zenith of enlightenment. I was not awash in answers. I was achy and irritable. In fact, in retrospect, the entire journey from the city to the peak and back was farcical. I was more like John Goodman in the Big Lebowski than anything else, or The Dude maybe. Perhaps my journey was to feel exactly what I felt; achy, despondent, irritable, depressed, frightened, exhausted, in pain, befuddled, grieving, and longing for my mother to be alive. Of course, before the hike I didn’t know I was going to feel anyway other than joyful; and whatever enlightenment feels like.

A bright red prayer ribbon tied to budding blossoms on trees. — A wish for peace

The evening we were to leave, I poured some of my mom’s ashes (that I had brought with me from America) into a small box and put them in my backpack. If I made it to the peak then I would leave that little part of her there on that mountain top. It would be the closest I’d ever get to the stars. If I made it.

I read that it was a dangerous and steep hike. The highest mountain I’ve ever hiked. At least up to that point. I wasn’t sure which peak were were going to tackle, but Sho Boa insisted he had it all figured out, so I packed my bag, and waited for Sho Boa and Xiang Kai to meet me at my apartment. Our overnight train was at 1:00 a.m., but Sho Boa wanted us to get there around 11:00 p.m. so that we could pick up some snacks for the trip.

I had no idea what I was in for, but again, in retrospect, if I had a better idea of what was ahead of me, I would have taken a nap.

Continued…

Sharp mountains reach toward a gray sky. Bright green foliage grow around stones. — Base of Huashan

I lived in Zhengzhou, China in the Henan Province from the year 2013-2014. My mother died February 19th, 2014, 24 days after her 64th birthday, and five days before my 41st. 
This post was created from two previous posts I wrote back in 2015 and 2016. You're welcome to follow the links, but honestly I think this post is the better one.

Returning to Asia

Published on April 8, 2016March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

After waiting for nearly four months, my criminal background check finally arrived last week, and with it came my permission slip to look for a new job overseas. I had originally intended on leaving in February, but sometimes things don’t go as intended. I’ve decided to look at these extra months as a time for me to get healthy and to really focus on what I need in my life to give me happiness.

It had taken about 3 months to get on the Oregon Health Care plan, but thankfully it exists because I have been able to go to the dentist, and to the doctors, and get myself back on track for a healthy mind and body. As the saying goes, “if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.” I hadn’t been feeling very good for awhile. I’m pretty certain I can guess the cause, but the point is that I’m back on a mission to feel strong again, and just in time too because I will be returning to the proverbial road.

I have been vacillating between applying to work in China and working in South Korea for a few months now. Many of my friends have been saying that Korea is the way to go, and have wondered why I would even consider China.

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“You hated China.”
“You were miserable there.”

It’s true, I did hate much of my time in China, but aside from China there were other factors to my hating it; my mother dying, conflict with the director of the program, and culture shock all contributed to my hating much of my time in China. It is not easy to live in China. I do believe some people may thrive there, but in truth, I think it can be a tough adjustment for a multitude of reasons. I do believe all of those reasons can eventually be overcome if you want to stick it out in China, and that you can learn to accept things, and even grow to enjoy them; all but one that is.

Although, my time was difficult there, I had also gained a strange love for China. It’s difficult to explain, and maybe if it hadn’t of been a year it may not have gotten under my skin, but it did. It took about seven months of being away, but I slowly began to miss it. I missed certain things like food, and the crazy traffic, and riding my bike in that crazy traffic. The insane rides on e-bikes, babies in pants with bottoms, old ladies dancing in parks, kites everywhere, are among the few things I’ve missed. There were things there that mattered to me, and left an impression on me that I will carry for the remainder of my life. My kids mattered to me, they mattered a lot, and they were such a huge part of my experience in China. I spent more time with 15 to 18 year old Chinese kids than any other group of people, and the experiences with those kids which included a special trip to Kaifeng, really shaped my view of the country. The Chinese people I became friends with mattered to me. In China it can be difficult to know if Chinese people are really your friends if they actually like you as a person. There are so many people that want you to be around because you are western, and it is about status to call a westerner a friend. You will not ever be Chinese, and you will never be truly accepted into the culture, and because of this it can be hard to ever find that bond that we all crave in our friendships. Perhaps I am delusional, but I feel blessed in my belief that I was able to move beyond this barrier with very little effort with some of the Chinese friends I had made while there. I felt a real kinship with the people I called friends, even when we came up against massive cultural differences. There are Chinese people I do consider to be genuine friends, and I feel that they look on me as the same, not as a “western” friend, but as real friend the kind of friend that accept the whole cultural and enigmatic package that makes up each and everyone of us.

CIMG3838 — Xiang Kai and Sho Boa (Shawn) hiking up Mt. Hua

I have been fascinated with Chinese history since I was a little girl. I remember stacks of National Geographic magazines with images of China. I remember watching the student protests in Tiananmen Square live on television. I had taken a course in the history of Eastern Civilization in college and I had become immersed in the ancient history of the dynasties. When I was a girl there were only three things in the world I had wanted to see: The Pyramids of Egypt, the Acropolis of Athens, and the Terra Cotta Warriors of China (I can mark one off my list). Chinese films are among some of my favorite, and the dissidents of China are some of the bravest people in the world. There is much to be fascinated with in China, and there is a lot to grab your heart and keep you there, but for every amazing thing Chinese there is also something insidious. A drive for cultural success that is so strong that corruption and lies are an accepted part of the society norm creating at times a dog-eat-dog world. The repressive regimes from the cult of Mao to the current CCP that smothers the real strength of what is hidden in China. The annoying and ridiculous firewall put in place to control and suppress the people, and the denial of terrible events by erasing them from history. The horrific pollution that had for too long been acceptable in China, and ignored in the majority of the world. These are things that are difficult to live in, and I believe it is difficult for many Chinese too (judging by various conversations). China is a land of great contradictions and it is these contradictions which constantly push and pull at you. At me.

CIMG0926 — Some of my kids rehearsing for “The Outsiders”.

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So, what are the deciding factors, what did it come down to when choosing between China and South Korea? The main motivation for China was a school. A drama school where I would be a theatre teacher, and where as part of my work I would be required to direct my own children’s plays. I contemplated this school for nearly a year. It would be a job that combined my theatre, my literature and my teaching skills. I would finally be working in a creative environment and for that I was willing to move to the polluted city of Beijing. Yet, it was during a bike ride in Portland that finally solidified my final decision.

It is now spring, and the sun is out and the sky is a clear blue that bends over the city with only a smattering of cumulus clouds dotting the sky like paint on a palette. The days have been beautiful and easy going. My moods have been hum-drum and dark, and sometimes this happens even when things are going well in my life, I need these beautiful days to help lift me from my internal darkness. I knew at that moment under the blue sky in the face of mount Tabor, the small extinct volcano covered in the rich green of white-cedar and poplars, that I needed to live in a beautiful place. As much as I had wanted the theatre school and as much as I was willing to return to China, I knew in my heart that returning to an over-populated, dirty, and congested city with air so bad that there were red alert days not allowing us to go outside, was not a good idea for me. I knew, no matter how great the school, my sadness would overcome me, and I can’t live like that.

I have started the interview process for jobs in South Korea, and I’ve focused my attention on applying to schools in places where the sky is blue and the ocean is near-by. The job matters, but the environment matters more.

As I had mentioned before I believe that most of the challenges of being a foreigner in China a person can overcome, but one. That one for me is the pollution. China is a geological diamond and a natural wonder of nature, but the coal and the money made on cheap labor and unregulated businesses that damage the country is more important then the jewel. I will one day return to China, but maybe as a visitor. Till then I will be in South Korea.

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The Yellow River Park in Zhengzhou

Published on April 2, 2016March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

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The Yellow River is called “The cradle of Chinese civilization”. Chinese dynasties were built along this river, and in the early periods of Chinese history the regions around the Yellow river were the most prosperous. It is the 3rd longest river in Asia, and the 6th in the world. It is a life giver and referred to in Chinese as the mother river, but it has also earned the name, “China’s sorrow.” This river has has taken well over a million lives. The river’s flooding from it’s constant changing of course from erosion has earned it the world reputation of being the only natural disaster in recorded history to kill more than a million people.

In the years between 1332 and 1333, seven million people were killed from theYellow river flooding, and the subsequent famine and disease that followed after. In 1887, 900,000 to 2 million people died, and in 1931, 1 to 4 million people died. The most interesting of floods happened in 1938 during the second Sino-Japanese war. The Chinese military decided to break the levees and flood the valley on purpose as a way to prevent the advancing Japanese army from reaching their goal of capturing Wuhan where at the time the temporary Chinese Government was set. The idea was to have “the water be a substitute for soldiers”. 5,000 to 9,000, Chinese civilians were killed in the floods, and an unknown number (but most likely not as many Chinese) of Japanese soldiers. The flood stopped the Japanese from capturing the city of Zhengzhou, but they still reached their goal of overtaking and capturing Wuhan.

A river that has birthed a civilization and taken away such a multitude of life is not going to continue in modern China with out a park dedicated to it. The Yellow river park is located in the northern part of Zhengzhou, and can be long trip on a bus, but we were lucky to have a friend with a car, and he drove his family, and my friend’s family, and myself to the park for the day. This happened near the end of our stay in Zhengzhou so it was a nice way to end a year in this Chinese city of Northern China.

It’s a huge park with five sections. At the time of the visit, we were not informed of where we were or the significance of any of what we were looking at so much of it was just interesting for the sake of its existence, and carried little historical reference for any of us foreigners. Aside from the massive statue of Mao, I had to look up the names of other statues and buildings on the internet, and I wasn’t able to find the names of everything, but I was able to find some bits here and there.

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We first ascended a small mountain, and that is where we found the giant statue of Mao. The children quickly preceded to climb him in order to race to the top to see who could tag Mao’s mole first. It is considered good luck to rub the hands of Mao. The infamous leader is known for saying, “We must control the river,” which resulted in building dams and levees. The view from the statue of Moa looked down on the the wide and literally yellowish brown river. Looking down from the mountain we could see areas for rice paddies but most of the area is now used for the purpose of the park, and transferring the water from the river to Zhengzhou.

We crossed over a bridge called the Luotuo (camel) bridge which led to the Yueshan temple on Yue Mountain. There is a great view of the statues and the monument that they built below. I didn’t know the significance of much of what I was looking at, unfortunately, but what I’ve gleaned from the internet is that the giant statue on the mountain measuring 59ft high is the connected heads of Yandi and Huangdi the great ancestors of China, and they face the river in a symbolic reverence for this giver and taker of life. Information pretty much dies out from there.

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At the base of the part of the park that is called the Five Dragon Peak there is a statue of a Mother cradling her son. This statue is to represent the mother river and China, and their harmonious relationship (they’ve yet to build the statue of the mother dropping and shaking the baby to represent the times not so harmonious). The park also has statues of very famous calligraphy writers- non of whom I knew of, but calligraphy is an art form in China, and to be called a writer in China means that you do calligraphy. It was in this area of the park were we found a man who painted a quick drawing for each of us (for a cost) and then wrote a poem. I had asked my Chinese friends what the poem said, and they all replied, “It’s too hard to translate,” which I found to be the common response when asking for the translations of certain things.

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Our tour guides drove us around to parts of the park where not all tourist were allowed to go which is the advantage of having your driver being a Zhengzhou cop, and he took us to a quiet area near a sharp curve in the river where there seemed to be people disgusting the construction of something. A woman rode out on horse back to deliver a message to people working, and then she quickly rode away as if riding back into the past. We were warned not to stand too close to the river, not because it can jump up and pull you in, but because the soil and silt is very soft and can suddenly crumble under your feet. It is this soft earth that causes the rapid erosion and the continuous changing of the river. Although, the river has not changed much since Moa exclaimed that it must be controlled.

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We ended at the base of the figure heads of Yandi and Huangdi where many Chinese were ringing giant bells, taking pictures and a couple of men were swinging whips over their heads to make giant cracking sounds that reminded me of firecrackers or gunshots. We watched the sun set behind wires and trees, and took the long traffic flooded drive back into Zhengzhou.

Faking China: A Theme Park

Published on March 30, 2016March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

If you find yourself in Zhengzhou, China, which is in the Henan Province, which is in the north, and to the west of Beijing, and find yourself wanting to visit other parts of China too, but can’t for one reason or another, that’s okay because you can go to fake China in Zhengzhou. You never have to leave.

It’s been two years’ since I have lived in China, and even now certain memories return to me. Memories of me thinking, “What the hell is this?” and not knowing how to quite register the wonder and multitude of questions that China can at times offer. I had started saying to myself, “stopping asking why, there is no answer to why, it only is as it is. There is no why, and no answer, it’s just China.”

China is naturally a geological and geographical land of amazing beauty (I won’t focus on the horrible pollution that is destroying that beauty, but I’ll still mention it as an aside because it’s important to be reminded that there is a lot to lose). There are landscapes that steal your breath away and fill your heart with awe, but China is also the land of manufactured worlds, and that too is…well…it can leave you speechless. There is as much natural beauty as there is… shall we call it–imitation.It is a matter of opinion on whether you think this is an eyesore and a waste or if you think it’s a brilliant oddity of manmade accidental art, but when you are standing in the middle of one these pretend places you can’t help but be…well…speechless, and oddly admirable of the juxtaposition of China and China’s imitation of other counties and itself. There are ghost cities, and copycat cities: the fake Paris and the fake Venice, for example which are also ghost cities, and there are amusement and theme parks that are just devoted to imitating cities; like Las Vegas in a park with no gambling or strippers or alcohol.

In Zhengzhou, where I had spent one year of my life, the school where I had been working at the time took our classes- the English Language school, No. 42-to a park on the outskirts of the city as part of a class excursion. In the past, I had heard that the school used to offer two class trips a year, and that they had visited actual famous sights and landmarks, but I guess by the time I had arrived they must have lost the budget or decided not to spend so much on the teachers and students- so we got fake China. I never learned the name of the park in Chinese or translated into English, and believe me I had tried. I searched the internet but couldn’t find any information on this mystery park visited by Chinese students and couples having their wedding pictures taken. The closest I found was the Century Park where all the students excitedly thought we were going until our bus passed it by and took us to a second tier theme park. There were audible groans of disappointment.

A picture of the Longmen Grottos from across the river.

Henan, the province of Zhengzhou, is a very important province in the history and the civilization of China. In fact, out of the eight ancient capitals of China four of them have been located in Henan. Zhengzhou was recently added to that list due to the discovery of an ancient dynasty perhaps the oldest of all the dynasties, the Shang dynasty (1558 b.c.- 1046 b.c.). When in Zhengzhou there is no remanence of the Shang’s presence except for a portion of an ancient settlement wall that looks today like a giant wall of dirt. You can find this wall in the eastern part of the city. The other Capital cities were once located in Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Anyang (where the oldest collection of Chinese writing was found written on ox bones and turtle shells. Evidence of the Shang dynasty had also been found in Anyang). Henan is not only the birthplace of the great Chinese dynasties, but also Zen Buddhism, and Kung Fu. In this one province you can visit the oldest civilizations of China, and the explore the historical birthplaces of China’s societal foundations many of which still hold today, even many events leading to China’s communism were formed in Henan. In Luoyang there are the grottos an amazing religious site with over 100,000 carvings and status of Buddhist images. In Dengfeng and Shaolin are the schools of Kung Fu, and in Kaifeng the most famous judge in the history of China, Boa Zheng, had once resided. He was also called justice Bao because he was honest and upright, and even today he is the symbol of justice. A living history lesson at can be at your finger tips, but if you can’t get out of the city you can visit these ancient landmarks in one city park in Zhengzhou.

The area where the ancient wall from the Shang Dynasty was over 3,000 years ago.

Where there were once ancient ruins discovered in the 70's and 80's now families plant urban gardens. — Where there were once ancient ruins discovered in the 70’s and 80’s now families plant urban gardens.

I wasn’t really certain what to expect, and since at this point I had already lived in China for close to a year, I knew to expect the unexpected. All that could really be explained to me was that we were going to a park. I’ve decided to name it The Park of Great Things In Henan and Beyond, because every city and historical monument was represented in replica, not to size, for the Chinese tourists to enjoy. I say Chinese because this isn’t a park that many foreigner travelers may find themselves. Not many foreign travelers will even find themselves in Zhengzhou for more than a day. Most people come to Zhengzhou only to change trains unless they are actually living in the city. I remember a person once saying to me, “Zhengzhou? Oh yeah, I think I was there, in fact I got my wallet stolen in the Zhengzhou train station.”

My student and I at the fake Longman grotto. — My student and I at the fake Longmen grotto.

Can’t visit Luoyang? No matter you can find the Grottoes here. Don’t have time to see the Iron Pagoda in Kaifeng? It’s here. You’ll never find yourself in Anyang? You guessed it, it’s here too. In fact, if you want you can see a part of the Great Wall here too. If you get tired of China you don’t ever have to leave the park because around the corner you will find Egypt right next to Greece, (of course) and all of Africa encompassed in two statues, and right next to Africa you’ll find Australia, exactly where you’d imagine it to be. The main highlights of the park were physically being there and kind of wondering why; discovering the pretty offensive perceptions of Africa (or maybe some island places?), the aged look of the park when it was only a couple of years old, having a water gun war on paddle boats, a Chinese man assuming I was a Christian because I am white/foreign and handing me his Bible to hold as he bowed to me several times, watching the multitude of wedding photography, skipping rocks with my students on a fake lake that had a water show, and spending time with students and teachers in a place that would and can only be experienced once in my entire life.

Fake Africa — Africa? The Polynesian Islands?

Greece is only a pathway away from Egypt.

Wedding Shot — One of many couples getting their wedding shots which are a huge part of the marriage.

If you want to see a few more photos from this theme park you can find them on my blog Simple.

A Winter Vacation In Sydney

Published on February 7, 2016March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Two years’ ago around this time I was in Sydney, Australia. I had set up the pictures on this blog to document my trip, but since my mom died four days after I returned to China from my winter vacation, I had lost the desire to write about it. In fact, I think I had felt guilty about going in the first place. How could I choose to go to Australia instead of going back to the States to visit my mom? What kind of daughter was I? Not a very good one.

Of course, I didn’t know she was going to die. She was sick. She’d been sick for a long time. She had been a drug addict, and had many health complications due to her drug abuse in her past. She had Hep C, and high blood pressure, and she had had a stroke years’ back, and she had diabetes, and probably a few things she hadn’t told me about, but she still wasn’t on her death bed. She had been living with all of these things for many years. I knew she probably wasn’t going to be on the planet with me for as long I would have liked for her to be here with me, but I didn’t expect it to be right at that moment. In fact, China was pretty much the last trip for me, and that was why I decided to go to Australia. I felt that I needed to go back to California and take care of my mom, and traveling was not something I was going to be doing for a long time. When was I going to have the opportunity to go to Australia again, I had thought. I had planned on seeing her in six months when my contract in China was completed. I had worried about her dying. In truth, I had been terrified of my mom dying for years, even as a child I was afraid to leave her. It had taken me a long time to be able to allow myself to go anywhere without carrying this fear, even though at this time it was even more possible. I was afraid of her dying from a stroke or diabetic complications, her liver giving up, any number of complications that could have occurred, and that’s why this was my last time to travel. It was a surprise to me to have her die right then, but even more surprising to learn she had died of an overdose. I wasn’t expecting that.

I felt really guilty. I had a hard time enjoying my memories in Australia, and I hadn’t really dwelt on them since. Coming across this pictures I’ve forgotten the details of the trip. I can only remember the name of the city. Sydney. Famous Sydney and the famous Opera House.

I met my friend, Lisa, who was coming from the U.S. and we stayed our first two nights at an Airbnb, but I forget the neighborhood. We had stayed for about four or five days in Sydney.

The sky was so incredibly blue, and the air was clean and fresh. After spending five months in China in the gloom of grey pollution and then winter it was like coming alive. I remember feeling incredibly happy. So many breathtaking shades of blue.

We stayed with friends of friend’s. We were so lucky to have connections and met up with some really wonderful people that helped us out, and showed us around. We spent a day at the zoo, went to some beaches, ate out, and were shocked at the prices for drinks.

Australia’s minimum wage is high which makes the prices high, which in theory should be affordable to the wages, but it was crazy for Chinese wages, and what we were used to as far as prices in the U.S. Not that we were there to spend our time in bars and restaurants. We were there (I definitely was there) to be outside.

I remember the friend who took us around laughing at us because we were loud in our excitement, and she made this comment, “American’s are so loud.” It was a stereotype that has some serious truth to it, and we fulfilled that truth on the day we took these pictures, but we were also really joyful, and happy.

We met up with a friend of Lisa’s who took us to another part of Sydney, basically the opposite side of where the above pictures were taken. She had given us advice on what museums to visit and she gave us a contact for when we traveled to Melbourne.

It is a shame to not remember the details, but it is hard even now, two years’ later to look at these pictures without some twinge of remorse. Not so much as that I wasn’t in the States, but just that I didn’t write my mom enough while I was on this trip. I could have tried harder to find a place to write an e-mail. I was waiting till I got back to China, but sometimes it’s worth it to take the time in that moment. But hindsight is nothing now.

Hi mom, I don’t have a lot of e mail access but I wanted to let you know I made it safely to Vietnam and Australia. I’m in Sydney, and it is the most beautiful place in the world. I would really like to live here. I leave for Melbourne tomorrow. I will write you as soon as I get home on the 16th.

I love you.

Your daughter.

hi babygirl,

you will have to tell all about vietnam when you are home and have time to set at a computer. Also need to know how things went in australia??

love you

mom

Hearing From Former Students in China

Published on July 19, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

China can be a challenging and difficult place to be a young student. This massive population and its limited high quality Universities makes the Gaokao, China’s college entrance exam, not only one of the toughest tests in the world it is also the test that determines a student’s academic future- therefore future. This test is taken by every Chinese student (except those who opt out by choosing to study abroad) and it is a test that they spend their entire middle school and high school lives preparing to take.

Universities are known more for having a good time in China than for studying, but there are a few top collages that many students in China dream of attending for academic purposes and those are universities in Beijing and Shanghai, and only the top Gaokao scores can attend these schools. Too add to the stress the desired score to attend college in these cities is different from province to province- for example if you are a student from the Province where I am currently living ,Henan, then you have to score higher on the Goakao than a student from Beijing or Shanghai or even a student from a Province with a lower population. The idea of this different scores plan is that it allows some balance. Henan is the most populated province in China and the thought is that if everyone was to need to the same score to get into a top University then there would be too many kids from Henan at all the top Universities. Honestly, I’m not certain how they came to this conclusion but if I were a student from Henan dreaming of going to a top University many of which are in not Henan I would feel that the scoring isn’t very fair, but I don’t make the rules.

During the school year at #47 I met a few students through our English corner- students who were not a part of my program, a Sino-U.S. program. One of these students, a young girl whose english blew away all of my students bound for the states, was a particular favorite of mine. She’s bright, ambitious, and a free-thinker. She’s fortunate enough to have parents that are pretty progressive so progressive in fact that they are not pressing marriage or even having a child (not yet anyway). She has some lofty goals. She wants to change the way China views mental health. This is a lofty goal. Currently, China’s view on mental health is fairly archaic, and those suffering from depression or bi-polar or even worse schizophrenia to name a few are left to the responsibility of the family who are unable to cope with these illnesses and of course those families and individuals suffer the stigmas that come along with backward thinking toward mental health issues. You can read about it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/07/unable-to-cope-chinas-inadequate-care-of-the-mentally-ill/278170/

and here: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=1682419

and here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/26/the_madness_of_china_s_mental_health_system

To make an incredibly long story short- this student sent me a text message today: “Hello how are you? I wanted to share my news, I am going to Shanghai University!”

I was so excited to read this news because I know how hard the Gaokoa is and how many students that I ask about their dreams don’t emphasize those dreams much because they worry about the competition of this test. I texted her back expressing my joy to her and letting her know how proud I am to know her. She responded with the best text one can ever get from a teenager.

“We are closer to our dream now! Don’t forget that I will be your first student!”

She was never my student but I’m really honored that she considers me to be one of her teachers because all we ever did was talk about life and dreams.

Night Clubs, Russian Disco Dancers, and Hot Pot After Midnight in Zhengzhou, China

Published on May 3, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

I had been warned to never eat hot pot from a street tent. At the moment that I was picking out what bit of food on a stick to put in my boiling bowl of soup, I didn’t really think about the warning or even what ‘hot pot in a street tent’ meant. It wasn’t until I was on the bus heading home at 7:00 in the morning, after a ridiculously late evening out, that I remembered that I was warned.

The bus gently rocked and lulled me toward sleep. I had a thirty minute bus ride to get home. I stared at the few Chinese denizens sitting on the bus. A man was asleep in the far back corner. His head was slumped over his right shoulder. It hung like a loose button on a thin thread, and I wondered if a jolt of the bus would break his neck. I wondered if he stayed out to late too. It was a Sunday morning, not a work day. What were these people doing on the bus? Shouldn’t they be busying themselves at home? Shouldn’t they be just waking up? I still haven’t grasped China. I’m not clear if it is really a five day work week or if people are working on the weekends. Some do. I was trying to justify why I was so wrecked on this bus at 7:00 in the morning. Trying to find some partners in irresponsible crime. I was concerned about being judged. Which shouldn’t matter, but I’m always stared at and examined. I didn’t want to join the ranks of drunken irresponsible westerner, but like I said, it didn’t matter what anyone thought. My life was only temporarily passing through this place. Temporarily passing through many places it seems.

I ate the hot pot from the street tent. I realized this while my thoughts were on the strangers on the bus. It is because of the gutter oil. The oil that people dredge from the gutters and reuse in order to save money. I figured I would be sick later. I’m sick often after the street food. It can be anything. It took a few months before my stomach toughened up some. I can’t figure out if it’s my age or the food. Maybe, a combination of both.

I don’t go out much. I’ve turned into a sort of hermit a kind of recluse. It could be culture shock, but I know it’s a combination of many, many things. Things not worth writing about yet. The nights out are rare, but they always end the same- It begins with drinks at one place, and then a move to another place to have too many drinks and then to a club. Drinks are bought together because you can’t have a table unless you buy the bottle or a rack of beers. The crowd is mixed- Chinese, Americans, Mexicans, Arabs, Africans, English, Russians- mostly young, but sometimes there is a range in ages. After a bottle is bought (usually Red Label Whiskey) and the worst sweet tea mixer ever designed, the dancing starts. Dancing on spinning dance floors, raised dance floors, floors that have hydraulics- the works. At times I think the Chinese are absolutely crazy. There seems to be so little concern for personal safety. I’m aware that I grew up in a world of hyper-saftey concerns sometimes over the top, but I was raised in the 70’s and 80’s so I did experience pre-seatbelts and all of that, and I did live in Germany where there is a kind of ‘go at your own risk’ type of safety concern. I really liked Germany’s take on it. It allowed you to take personal responsibility for your own actions, yet you still could take a risk if you wanted because it’s your life, but you better be aware of the consequences. I liked that. I’d say maybe China is like that, but then again it seems like there is no idea of consequences. As if people go about their day never even thinking that anything bad could possibly happen to them even if they are driving on their e-bike at night with no lights driving the wrong way on a one way street while reading a text message. What could possibly happen? There’s never any helmets worn and people drive on the wrong side of the road, never give right of way cut people off. I’ve seen children as young as four standing on the shoulders of the front seat of the car with their heads out of the sun roof. This lack of safety concern is in everything. The way buildings are built, pavements are laid, toys are made, how a person crosses the street. The dance floors reflect this nutty wildness. It seems to me like the worst idea in the world to create a dance floor that spins in a club where people are drunk. I don’t know why we don’t see more Chinese people in extreme sports because they seem fearless.

The clubs and bars are smokey like America in the early 90’s. It can be hard to breath especially when dancing on the stage. It isn’t really a stage, but more like a runway raised four feet from the floor, and made of metal. I love to dance, but I find it difficult to get into the dance scene here. The crazy amount of smoke with absolutely no air circulation, the narrow dancing space, and the great noticeable distance from the stage to the floor. There are tables all around the runway dance floor so if you were to fall then you’d fall onto a table. I find it hard to relax even with too much Red label Whiskey mixed with the god awful sweet tea. The music, er, well, I’ll just say the music from one club to the next is not that much different, and in all fairness, to give a bit of perspective, bars and clubs in this part of China are still a new thing. I’m also a secret curmudgeon. I don’t really like clubs. I like dancing, but club scenes are not my thing (even though I continue to find myself in them). Still, in retrospect it is a worthwhile experience mainly because of the fact that I’m living in China. When my mind is in a state of complete discomfort which it has been often while living here, I’ll have this sudden realization that I’m in China on a spinning dance floor with a group of people from all over the world, and that this is just a moment; a rare blip of a moment that will be over in a couple of hours, and how strange that all sounds to me.

The hot pot night was a little different then the usual night out because it was morning with strangers and four different possible languages, but English was the one we all had in common. At five in the morning I could care less about the gutter oil.

What do you get when a Russian, a Chinese, an American and a Mexican walk down a dark alleyway… food and conversation about love. A red tent with a hot pot eatery. Five am beers are ordered. The soup is ordered. The noodles are ordered and we pick our own food. The soup is in a plastic bag placed inside a bowl. I don’t think of sanitation which is the best way to get sick. I only think of eating and then going home to sleep, but it is so far to where I live (another reason why I am a part-time recluse).

Outside the sun is rising. The smog is rolling into the city like fog off a bay. Pictures are taken and taxis are waved down, and I wait for the number 7 longing for my hard bed. I wonder what the hell compelled me to stay out so late. I give myself a little reprimand then think about how often I stay up till morning at a dance club with people from all over the world, and then stumble down a dark dirty alleyway to a double sized red tent to find a hot pot inside filled with Chinese men that work late or start their day early. Not very often. I forgive myself and look forward to sleep. This is a year in China. It won’t happen again. Not in this city.

Experiencing the Death of a Parent While Living Abroad

Published on March 8, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental Vagabond2 Comments

It may be too soon to write.

I had been back in Zhengzhou for four days before I got the news. I’ve been living here for about 5 months teaching English literature to high school age children. I’m not a teacher. I think I have the knack. I certainly have the ability to be in front of people and talk, ten years of theatre training makes that a possibility. It isn’t my passion. I’ve avoided my passions because my passions are not “practical”. I came to China because my life in the states was stagnant. If I wasn’t going to throw my life into writing and theatre than I could at least travel while doing a practical job. It seems ridiculous now. Everything does.

I love my mother. I love her very much. It was just her and I. My parents divorced when I was one or two. My dad wasn’t one of those men that bailed and never returned, but he wasn’t always around. As I grew older he would come once or twice a year to pick me up and take me to my grandparents. I loved these trips because I loved my dad, but as I grew older I realized it was my mom who struggled to raise me day in and day out, and dad, well in my youth he was entertainment. Mom raised me. I would say that our relationship was not always healthy. There was often a role reversal where I would play the part of the mother and she was the child. This often caused anger and resentment on my part. I’d constantly rail against her behavior. Wondering when my mother was going to grow up. It wasn’t an easy life. My mom’s life was filled with a painful childhood, the loss of the only person she really loved (aside from me) her sister, and many bad choices in men, and some bad choices in lifestyle. My mom was an addict. She could be addicted to anything. Food, drugs, shopping (but she never had any money), men, anything. She said, about going to the casino, “Oh honey, I have to limit myself.” I had asked her why. “Because, Adrienna, I’m an addict, you know if it makes me feel good you know I’m going to do it till it kills me.” Then she’d laugh. She knew how to laugh at all of her pain. In her fifties she became homeless for three years. She had been homeless, addicted to meth, addicted to heroine, had a stoke, high blood pressure, issues with weight, diabetic, and because of the use of needles she had hep C. Still she was resilient. She’d gotten into a housing program, off the meth and the heroine- unfortunately she had to use methadone, she had to take tons of pills, but she was good with her eating (mostly). After her stoke she taught herself to read and write again, and she was trying to retrain herself to draw. My mother had the natural ability to draw. It was her neglected talent. There were two things she could not kick. Her cigarettes and bad men. She was down to one or two cigarettes a day then maybe one or two a week, but a diabetic person with high blood pressure and a stroke victim should not have one a week. Then there were the men. Those men. I called my mom the bum magnet. If you’re a man looking for a woman on welfare and raising a child on her own my mom’s the one for you. I hated them. Since I can remember there was some man coming into our life sitting on the couch trying to play the overbearing father while my mom worked under the table to support me and the man that was living off of her welfare checks. There wasn’t a being I hated more except perhaps child molesters, and I met some of those too. Even into her later years they’d come sniffing around. “Letafae, darling, won’t you take care of me?” There wasn’t anything she wanted more than the traditional family. The mother, the father, the child, the house, the picket fence; hopeless happiness. Since the moment I left at the age of eighteen and for the following twenty-two years, I agonized over my mother. How do I take care of my mother and also have a life for me?

From the moment I can remember wanting to be something I wanted to be a performer. First it was dance, then singing then finally acting. I wanted to be on stage. Starting at age thirteen until I was twenty-four all I wanted was to be an actress. But, self-esteem, and insecurities and the “impracticality fear” won out in the end and I abandoned my dream. I later moved to writing because it felt safer and hidden. No one tells a writer to straighten their teeth or loose weight or rejects the body as it stands in front of them. It’s just words on paper, but impracticality fear won that one too. I wanted to be an artist, but through strange mental manipulations from who knows where poverty maybe society maybe self-esteem maybe, I believed it wasn’t for me. We believed our dreams were not for us. “I was born poor and I’m going to die poor.” My mom would say in her moments of despair. She’d look at me with love and say, “but not you baby, you’re special. You’re not like me.” But, I was like her. I am a part of her, and I couldn’t shake the thoughts that a life of art was not meant for me. The words impractical, impractical, impractical- you’ll never make money- what will you do when you’re old- and how will you take care of mom, plagued me. So I floated from job to job to job trying to find something that fit something that could make me money something I could stick with till I made enough to go home and take care of mom. Take care of mom.

I told both my parents that going to China would be good for me because I could travel which I loved, and get the chance to see if teaching is right for me. “I already have a degree I could go back to the states and get my teaching certificate”. I could be a teacher a steady breadwinner. I think I was trying to convince myself more than them. I stayed with mom for two weeks before I left. She drove me crazy. At times I felt I wanted to push her away because her love was almost smothering at times. Once she had said to me on a visit. “I wish it could just be you and me forever.” She had been lovingly staring at me. I don’t even know if she was aware that the words came out of her mouth. I looked at her incredulously, “Thanks mom, that’s what every little girl wants to hear from their mother.” Her face changed from her distant revery to surprise, “Oh Adrienna, you know I didn’t mean it like that!” “Oh yes you did.” I said. She started laughing. “You’re one of those crazy ladies like Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” I said. She laughed, “Oh, Adrienna, I am not.” My goal on that visit aside from just visiting her was to get her set up on Skype so that we could talk on a regular basis. I had given her a computer, but by the time I got down to her home one of her male friends had convinced her to take it apart and rig some stuff up so she didn’t have to pay for internet (she was well below poverty level). I suppose it was a helpful thought, but he was a strange guy who had his own time frame and plans and control issues and he used that computer among other things to control my mom. I was angry, and frustrated, and I left without getting her on Skype. She managed to e-mail me in the first few weeks, but then two months went by without a message or response to my messages. Because of the homeless stint ten years prior when I couldn’t find her anywhere, and because of my huge fear of her dying and me not knowing or just her being in the hospital and me not knowing (because that happened once), and because I promised her I would be there for her in her old age and that she would not die alone, I’d be there; going two weeks without hearing from my mom sends me into a state of panic and anxiety. When I lived in Portland, I called her every week. For twelve years every week I’d call and we’d talk. I contacted friend’s and mother’s of friends to ask them to check in on her. She’d always be fine and she’d laugh about my concern. My friend’s mom said, when she checked in on my mom this last time I had asked for help, that she was giving some food to a homeless guy, and she was in super high spirits.

China’s been hard for me. I won’t get into it, but it’s been a tough adjustment. I have six more months on my contract and I’ve decided not to return to Zhengzhou after my contract is up, but I didn’t want to give up on China. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Vacation time came in January and I tried to decide, do I go home to see mom, or do I do some traveling? I weighed the points. My contract ends in August so if I go on a trip now then I definitely will go home in August to see mom then maybe come back to China and work somewhere else for a year. Maybe I should apply for grad school be a certified teacher. I didn’t know. In truth nothing excited me except the idea of traveling so I decided to go to Viet Nam and Australia. I had hoped maybe somewhere in those two countries I’d receive a sign something telling me what to do next. Mom’s internet and computer were working so I told her I was going to Australia. She was excited. She wanted me to tell her all about it. My mom’s birthday was on the 26th of January, but I was in Viet nam without access to a computer so I had to wait a few days to write her. I wrote her from Australia wishing her a happy 64th. She wrote back with glee in a short badly spelled e-mail. Her typing wasn’t very good because her hands would not always work. I wanted to send her a postcard so I asked her if she could get into her mailbox. She had broken the key and then lost the key, and only my mom could not get into a regular mailbox. I know there are still letters and postcards I had sent her from China sitting in that damn mailbox. She wrote to me, “Oh baby doll, that damn mailbox causes me such hassle. I’ll tell you more later I gotta go to Winco and my rides here. I gotta catch that ride.” Then she left me with a Janet Joplin song, “Bye Bye Baby Good-bye.” I wrote her that I would send another e-mail on the 16th when I got back from Australia.

I forgot to write the e-mail. I went right back to work and four days into being back in China, I thought, oh shit, I need to write mom. After class, I walked home and turned on the computer, and that’s when I found out mom was dead. My mom’s dead. She was found on the floor of her bedroom. She had been dead for a day. It was the 20th of February, and I flew to California on the 21st. I’m an only child and there were things to do.

There were friends. Lots of friends. My mom’s friends who I call the ladies, and my friends who came down from Portland and Seattle to support me and help me with all of the details of death. We cleaned her apartment, and got rid of her stuff, gave things away, I took the paperwork and photographs. Talked to police, and funeral parlors, and banks. Mother was cremated, and I got the ashes and my friend drove me and mom’s ashes four hours to Eureka so that I could scatter them in the place that my mom said she had her only happy childhood memories. Then more paperwork. My birthday came and went and my friends had to go back to their lives and mom’s girlfriends’ grieved, and I had to get back on a plane and fly from Chico to San Francisco, to Hong Kong, to Zhengzhou, to a bus to my apartment to my bed, and now I grieve.

My entire adult life I have thought almost daily about how to help my mom. How to help my mom while trying to preserve myself. My goal in the end was to be there for her. “You will not die alone.” I told her. I will be there. I wasn’t. I wasn’t there. I was here. In China. Thousands of miles away. When I climbed into my friend’s car that hot day in early August of 2013 as she was about to drive me to San Francisco for my flight I had no idea it would be the last time I would see my mom or hear her voice. She had health complications and I was prepared to fly home in an instant if she got sick, but it was still a surprise. She had just been to the doctor two days before she died. She knew I worried about her. “Oh, Adrienna, don’t worry, I’ll be around to torture you for years. I’m not going anywhere.”

It has been five months since I’ve seen or spoken with my mom. Five months that have suddenly turned into the rest of my life. Gone, just gone. There was no viewing, no body, only ashes. I had always thought I’d get a message a psychic message of sorts. I thought we had to be connected in the way that I would know. I’d always get these feelings of concern thoughts about how I needed to contact mom, and find her to make sure she was okay. When I was a child I used to be terrified on my visits with my father. I’d lie on the bed in my grandma’s house and listen to the sounds of the city and have bad dreams about coming home and finding my mother dead. I’ve feared this moment for as long as I can remember. I’d get the feeling and contact her and she’d be fine, but this time there was nothing. No psychic message. There never were any messages it was just me like playing Russian roulette with my anxieties. When my mom’s sister died, I was five years old. I still remember the flashing lights, my mom crying, but I don’t remember my aunt. There were years of crying and I remember holding my mom, but not knowing what the crying was about. My mother told me that after my aunt died that she spoke to their mother and my grandmother had said to her, “It should have been you.” There was so much pain in that family. My grandmother said once to my mom, “No one will love you and you will die alone.” I was very protective of my mom. You won’t die alone I promised. I’ll protect you I promised. I was little when I made those promises, but they never left my mind.

I read there are five stages of bereavement. Denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and then hopefully finally acceptance. Supposedly, a person feels these in no particular order except number five comes last and not everyone gets to number five. I feel like I’m hitting all five at once. I can’t believe she’s dead, I think if only I had been there, if I wrote that damn e-mail on the 16th, I’m a bad daughter, a failure, I’m angry, all of the stages simultaneously. There are even glimmers of acceptance. It’s still too soon. I’ve been back in Zhengzhou for less than 24 hours, I was in Australia not even a month ago, I cradled my mother’s ashes in my arms as I cried myself to sleep days go. It’s all just happened.

I sit in my empty apartment looking out at grey smoggy skies the color of my mothers ashes, thousands of miles from all that is familiar and comfortable, my sleep is racked with sudden panic attacks, and I think, oh my god what now? My mother’s gone. What now?

China Diaries: Why am I Struggling to Write About Life in China?

Published on October 14, 2013March 18, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Daylight in Zhengzhou, China. Multiple scooters, cars and electric cargo trikes bottle-neck into crowds of pedestrians. — Crowded streets near the Zhengzhou train station

Culture Shock?

I have been in China for a little over a month. In fact, I am one week shy of two months, and I don’t know what to say about it.

There are plenty of topics from which I can choose to write a story. I could write about the air pollution. I could write about the traffic and the driving. I could talk about the cultural differences in ideas surrounding education. I could write about visiting Shaolin and what it felt like to have my picture taken as many times as some of the stunningly rebuilt temples. I could talk about what it is like to be a teacher in a program filled with China’s second generation of wealth. There is the food, the water, the toilets, the westerners there are many topics.

Erqi Memorial Tower at night in Erqi Square, Zhengzhou, China. — Erqi ( pronounced Archie) Memorial Tower in Erqi Square

Yet, when I face this computer screen and this blank page or when I hold a pen in my hand and stare down onto the blank sheets of paper in my journal, my mind is empty. I am unable to communicate into written word my experiences thus far. I’m certain I have been experiencing culture shock. There were days in my first week when I couldn’t go outside. I was like an agoraphobic unable to leave my apartment. It wasn’t only about how different it was, but how different I was in a crowd of thousands. I’ve never experienced these feelings before, and I am struggling to find the words to describe what I have been feeling, especially in the moments of paralysis.

Trouble with Words

Writing is the moment when I, an author, can be like the painter. When words translate impressions, observations, and feelings into verbal expressions. It is the time to recreate inner thoughts and experiences through figurative language in a way that guides others toward understanding those thoughts. Written words allow others to share in those experiences, maybe even pretend that they are the ones living vicariously through the words on the page. This is a particular type of writing. It is the type of writing I want to do. I have these words. I know I have these words. They are in my brain. I know it. I can feel them bubbling and rising to the surface of my mind, resting on the frontal lobe, and like water they soak in between the ropes of my brain. I sit up and grab a pen to write, but when I go to the desk they vanish.

I am left with a feeling of a wanting and an emptiness.

The Zhengzhou international conventaion center lit up at night with glowing purple, pink and blue colored lights. — Zhengzhou International Convention Center at night

I Teach English. Students Memorize English.

“Use your English words.” I say this a lot in my classes.

“What does that mean?” I ask a student that is making a gesture with their hands. I think I know what they mean, by the gesture. I could easily say, “Yes, you are right that is the definition,” and let it go, but instead I say, “Use words. What do you mean by that gesture.” I push them because I have overestimated my understanding before, and communication has been lost. The point of our languages is to communicate. The student looks at me with a pensive look, “ummm… it is very hard. I do not know the words.”

My Chinese students are very good a memorizing. They are very good at taking tests. They are able to read a passage in English out loud, but when I ask them to explain what they have just read, they do not know. Reading skills are strong, but comprehension is low. The tests are not about comprehension, but recognition. They know the words in English, but they do not understand the words.

A class photograph of teachers at a school in China. — Year Book Photo, Teachers at Middle School #47

Language is complicated. It has four parts like a clover, yet within each part of learning a language there are deeper more complex units of understanding. It is beautiful. Multilingual people have a valuable gift. The gift of communication across nations. I don’t have this gift.

“Use your English words”. I suppose that is where I need to begin. I can follow the advice of Raymond Carver and write a word, and then another word until I have a sentence, and then when I finish that sentence I will write another one. It’s like walking Carver said, “you put one foot in front of the other.”

The Beginning is Sometimes at the End

And so, I can begin at the beginning.

I moved to Zhengzhou, pronounced Jengjo, China on the 25th of August. It is a large city in the largest province, in China; the Henan province. There are 80 million people living in Henan. There are 9 million people living in Zhengzhou. Those numbers are not exact, but they are close. There are 600 registered westerners living in Zhengzhou. I am one of those 600 westerners. 9 million Chinese citizens and 600 registered foreigners.

In my part of the city, the Central Business District, I have only seen foreigners who work at my school. Most days, I am the only non-Chinese. The only white person, and people stare and point, following me with their eyes. I am a foreigner. I can not hide this. Growing up white in a predominantly white town, and moving to a predominantly white city, I have never stood out. No, that isn’t right. Standing out can be fun, and positive, this is different. I am seen, yet invisible. All eyes are on me, but when I reach out for help eyes either turn away or turn blank, and some eyes scan me from head to toe, but somehow I am not seen, and my words are foreign.

I know other people have experienced this. People of color experience this even in their own country which must add another layer of otherness. You should be a part of the community because you were born there, but you are not, you are an outsider. The thought of that on top of what I currently am feeling wells up within me. I feel an empathy for others that I once only held as a sympathy. It’s lonely. It is a lonely feeling.

Few people speak English in my neighborhood. I do not speak Chinese. I do not even know the words. I am an alien in China. I am different. I am isolated. I am surrounded but alone. I don’t know the words. I don’t understand. I am alone without the language. My students they know my language, but they do not understand my language. So much is lost in the translation of gestures. It is just memorization without comprehension.

I am wrong. It is not lost in translation because there is no translation. I do not have the language to express to English readers these feelings of isolation within crowds. Yet, I teach English. My English fails me. What I wrote here today is the best I have to offer.