Meg in China

Children's Day

2008-06-11T09:58:00.002+08:00

How do you sit down and write about tragedy? It might take ten days before you'll let it out. Telling people over the phone can be cathartic and therapeutic, yet somehow dilutes the emotions of the day. Quick, write it down before it is lost.

50 km from the epicenter
Sunday, June 1st (Children's Day - the equivalent of every child's birthday, a day when parents celebrate children)

A group has formed outside the ruins of the elementary school. They are parents. Their children are still inside. It is Children's Day.

There is a clothesline of elementary school portraits and candid shots of the children in their favorite clothes. One is a dancer. Her father says:

"My daughter was the best dancer. She was so beautiful. She danced in our town and in neighboring towns. She always wanted to dance. Now she is dead. Look at that building. How could that have stood during an earthquake? Look at these walls. Sand. Look at this steel - how could this have held up a building? It is so flimsy. What do I tell my daughter?"

Above the photos, a banner has been hand-painted. It says:
"To our babies. Mom and Dad love you, we will be with you soon." and "Who will explain this to our children?"

In front, a small alter has been erected. Incense is burning, candles are lit, and handfuls of foods lay strewn across the table. Where one would normally see an alter covered in seeds or fruits, here I see cookies and gummies, the kinds of foods a five or six year old might choose as they head out for a journey.

How do I write about the faces of parents that have gone blank?
How do I write about an anger that is deeper and sharper than any I have ever witnessed?
How do I write about utter despair?

I came to this village with a group of ex-pats called "The Rainbow Project" to celebrate children's day with the displaced children in the refugee camp. We passed out toys, played games, sang songs, danced, and marveled at what fun can be had in the midst of rubble and loss. As the sun got hot and the kids headed back to their homes (tents), a few older girls took my by the hand and asked if our group would like to see the their school. I nodded, and we began walking down the empty road together. They pointed out three story buildings that had turned into one story buildings. The crumbled building where one of the girls (Wang Shan)'s mother used to sell shoes. A house where a soldier had died trying to retrieve the belongings of another girl's grandmother.

The first school we reached was the high school. One girl bravely walked in and began giving a guided tour of the destruction (This is where the students sleep. Many were taking an afternoon nap when the earthquake hit, and they died. This is the teacher's building, it is fine. This is the classroom building. 80 students died here...). I looked over to see Wang Shan crying - she had been next door, but her friends had been some of the 80 in the fallen building.

We walked on to the elementary school, where up to 200 children had died. On the way, we passed army tanks full of supplies, ghost-buster-like figures in full body suits spraying chemical cocktails onto ruins, and very little else. Two women passed us, sobbing uncontrollably. Parents. We reached the elementary school, and found the vigil spilling over the front lawn. They sat silently and intensely, commemorating Children's Day with their eyes on the ruins of their children's school.

A Review of IronMan as told from Sichuan Province

2008-06-04T23:42:00.002+08:00

Last night a few of my friends and I decided to indulge in a very American movie (Iron Man) in a very American-feeling place (air conditioned shopping mall in southern Chengdu) and just forget about everything for awhile. Here is my review of the movie:

In the movie, our hero, Iron Man, watches the news to figure out where to fight his next battle. He hears about a camp of refugees left behind by international media, full of injured families and orphaned children looking for their parents. In light of this past weekend's experiences (next post), this all hits a little too close to home for us.

To add a visceral element to the experience, the stadium seating and digital surround sound made our seats rattle whenever anything blew up on screen (often)... it felt like an earthquake. My friends and I glanced at each other and towards the exits, mentally preparing evacuation plans.

Thankfully, we did adjust to the rattling seats (as one does adjust over time to things shaking all around them). The movie helped this process by quickly leaving behind its serious inclinations and happily digressing into a series of Robert Downey Jr. vs. Jeff "The Dude" Bridges robot battles, which I could not relate to in the least. The corny dialogue flowed and the improbable action sequences commenced. There. Now we could finally relax and let go. This was fiction.

B+

Impacted

2008-05-30T11:33:00.002+08:00

Words have begun to escape me in the midst of these waves of tragedy and hope...here is what happened two days ago.

Wednesday:

Qili Village - In the middle of a village that was in the mid-impact range of the earthquake (only some of the houses are destroyed, most still stand with huge cracks in the walls, the kindergarten fell down, but the rest of the school is still standing, etc.), we gave out our second round of microloans. These loans were supposed to be given the day after the earthquake.

Today the mood is emotional - excited, celebratory, and mournful all at once. The borrowers have prepared a beautiful ceremony honoring our presence and relief work in their village. A man sings while his 6 year old daughter dances. We give out 8 more microloans...(a mere drop in the bucket of a tragedy displacing 5 million people, a part of my brain chides. my heart quiets it as we listen to the community planning its own period of reconstruction and regrowth. we can help in some small way.)

One of the women who received a loan for rabbits during the first lending ceremony stands up to speak. She tells us that when the earthquake hit, it destroyed the rabbit raising area and much of her roof. She sold the rabbits and raised a new roof, while sleeping in a tent in her courtyard. She is also currently putting her daughter through university, she proudly mentions.

I meet a boy who is now known in town as being the fastest child in kindergarten. When the ground began to tremble, he made it out first, followed the rest of the children. Then the school crumbled.

There are moments of hope, too. Our lending ceremony had to be moved next to the courtyard where it was held last time because the courtyard no longer exists. No earthquake damage here, it is now filled with a rabbit raising compound built by our youngest loan recipient, an 18 year old who has decided to stay in town and be the cashier of the lending project rather than migrate to an urban area and leave his family. His new compound withstood the earthquake, and his rabbits are fine. He was the one who had called me just after the first initial earthquake to check up on my safety and invite us back to the village.

The thousands of aftershocks that have struck in the weeks following the earthquake have felt unnerving and annoying from our 6th story high rise in Chengdu. In Qili, they continue to threaten lives. People point at crumbling walls and cracked ceilings and explain that a few more aftershocks will probably take them all the way down. There is no point in rebuilding right now if the earth is just going to keep shaking.

Selflessness - The Rabbit King and Queen (our community partners through the Rabbit King Poverty Alleviation Research Center) have orchestrated most of the relief efforts in their area since the earthquake, and we have been impressed and thankful. Then we saw their factory. Now we are stunned.

The entire factory (which includes their offices, dorms for workers, school rooms, cafeteria, and personal home) has crumbled. Most of their rabbits were either crushed or ran away. Their staff is working in a tent in the middle of an alley. In the midst of this, they took the time to organize a relief effort for foreigners and a miniature village. My heart and brain cannot come to terms with the depth of their selflessness.

They understand at a very deep level, however, how their ability to function as a business and organization affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of rural villagers in the area. Rabbit raising in villages relies on the supply chain that the Rabbit King orchestrates. Without him, his factory, and staff, their mini businesses and our microfinance project would flounder. With tears in her eyes the Rabbit Queen explained that they have always been the ones to give donations, to bring aid, to organize efforts...they are not accustomed to being in a position of need (another stunning statement coming from the two people who are literally China's pinnacle story of rags to riches).

We commit to trying to help them in any way we can as they rebuild their factory, knowing that they would be the last to directly ask for help.

Brighter

2008-05-23T21:21:00.005+08:00

How do I begin to describe how much brighter life has gotten in the last few days?

Here is an example:
I am volunteering my evenings to work on a trauma debriefing team. We meet with relief workers as they return from disaster-stricken areas. Today I debriefed a team of young men who had flown in from all over China intending to hike into remote villages not yet reached by aid workers. When they discovered that landslides and aftershocks made the path too dangerous for anyone to get through, they set down their tent in a local refugee camp for the night.

There, they noticed no one was smiling, no children were playing. They spotted an empty space cleared for tent use and persuaded the local officials to let them rope it off as an official "play zone." Kids who had stared at them with shock and skepticism as they initially entered the camp came running when they saw part of their refugee area turning into an space for music and games and limbo contests. The men had brought with them 1 guitar, 1 kazoo, and a sack of balloons. Instead of musical chairs, they played musical water bottles. One piece of rope managed to make its way into multiple games for multiple purposes. A limbo stick was made from a tree branch. At lunchtime, the kids had to be forcefully told to go "home" (back to their individual family's blue tent, shared with another family), they then came running back to play through the afternoon. When we spoke, the young men were hoarse from yelling and organizing the children, but kept going until night settled onto the camp. Exhausted, they said: "ok! let's do this again tomorrow! 10am, on the play field!" The children reluctantly went home and the relief workers fell into their makeshift beds.

At 6:30am, their tent started rustling. The children had gathered outside, ready to play again. By 8am, everyone was on the field, and another day of intense play began. Today is Friday and these workers just returned. Without meaning to, they spent 5 days organizing an impromptu summer camp for refugee children in the middle of Sichuan's quaking mountains. There are more layers to this story. Parents started gathering to watch the odd sight of their children laughing and smiling for the first time since the earthquake, and became protective of the field. They made sure that it was permanently closed off to all other activities other than play. Inspired, the principal of the local school came out of the woodwork from his own period of grieving and, with the help of these young men, organized all the teachers around him to open a make-shift school in the blue refugee camp tents. By the time the relief workers left, children had resumed classes.

As the "debriefer" on the other side of this story, I met 4 sunburned, dirty, beaming young men. They still had enough energy to make sure I got down the details of every one of their stories, noted all of the current needs of the refugee camp, and even demonstrated their limbo skills. I am awed, inspired, and so glad to be in Sichuan. The days are getting so much brighter.

(abc news thinks so too. these are my guys!)

Moment of Silence, Night in the Field

2008-05-20T09:22:00.005+08:00

Every day is full. The last 24 hours taught me lessons in uniquely Chinese aspects of mourning and panic.

One week anniversary of the earthquake. Just before 2:28pm another minor aftershock (one of thousands in the last week) rattled our building. We heard sirens blaring, car horns honking, and saw people in a stand-still on the street. Another "big one", we thought, grabbing our emergency bags (constantly packed, now, with passport, money, water, peanuts, clean underwear, camera, and a journal) and the puppy, and ran down our six flights of stairs to the ground level. For once, however, we were the only ones in a state of panic. The blaring sirens, horns, and people were observing a "moment of silence" for the earthquake victims. In a particularly Chinese manner, it was neither a single moment, nor silent, but it definitely got the point across.

Later we went to a vigil in the main square of town. Thousands gathered with candles lit. This "vigil" was unlike any I had been to. It was loud and raucous with shouts of "China! Fight On!", and "Sichuan! Fight!". The energy was incredible. People poured in from the streets to join marching lines and tightening circles, where they yelled and chanted in turn. Under the giant white statue of the late Chairman Mao, a Red Cross vest had been stuck onto the end of a pole and was being waved like a flag. Below it, a team had set up a tent collecting donations of water and clothing. I was interviewed by a Chinese reporter who said "I'll bet this isn't what you had expected a vigil would be like." He was right.

I saw a man wearing an "I Love China More Than Ever" t-shirt. I stopped him and asked if I could take his picture. He nodded solemnly (a change from the usual excitement at the opportunity for a photoshoot), and I looked over to see his wife standing nearby with tears in her eyes. They had lost someone. Many people. A house? A family? A community? In the midst of rally cries and panicked nights, it is easy to forget about the real loss of this catastrophe. Over 30,000 lives, and counting. Walking down the street, I see the eyes of those who have lost someone. They are wide, red, and glassy. They look naked.

Just an hour later, back home and making family calls, we received warnings from friends, colleagues, and the TV saying that another big one - really! - was coming. Emergency bags and puppy were tucked under our arms as we evacuated for the second time that day. We set up camp back in "The Field" (our field, we now say lovingly), and waited as friends from Sweden, Germany, Argentina, and China came to join us at our impromptu sleepover. We were also joined by hundreds of families fleeing their buildings in the surrounding area. Slept through the night. Only one major aftershock (5.1), but nothing note-worthy. Our hips and backs ache, but a few nights of that is a small price to pay for safety (we keep telling ourselves).

Next: Godzilla.

2008-05-18T03:28:00.005+08:00

Here's what I wrote to my boss today:
Another 6.0 quake hit us, followed by pouring rain, a thunderstorm, crazy winds, fears of major flooding, rumors of potential epidemics from the dead bodies being near water sources, and potential damage to nuclear reactor sites nearby (built on/near a fault line!? come on, china).

We're starting to joke that we feel like the characters in the beginning of the new King Kong movie, who keep facing larger and more ridiculous scenarios all on one island (bad weather leads to crazy insects, which lead to massive gorilla attack, which leads to a dinosaur battle. of course.)

Spirits are up, though, and we've got enough food and water to last awhile in case we need it to. Registering at the U.S. Consulate tomorrow.
That's the news from the ground! Off to donate some supplies down the street.

...

I dreamed last night that I was a trapeze artist or (maybe) someone who had broken onto the set of Peter Pan and rigged themselves to the wires. While the real show went on in front of a curtain, I perched in the rafters backstage and practiced falling, then "flying" like the stage Peter Pan would, using silver wires hooked to my waist. I sang while my stomach dropped again and again from the falls. I remember thinking my voice was nicer than I thought it could be, but was also glad this was just practice and I still had time to improve.

I woke up to hear that another major aftershock had happened during the night, big enough to send Kasen running into Kate's room yelling "Did you feel that?? It was big!" I had slept right through it.

Processing, scared

2008-05-17T01:07:00.005+08:00

It's 1am, and my bed is shaking as another aftershock rattles chengdu. It's day 5 after the earthquake and it's getting hard to calm down. We go about our daily lives now, knowing that strong aftershocks come and go, rattling us, but leaving Chengdu's buildings in tact so far.

My friend went into Bei Chuan to do relief work near the epicenter two days ago. He told me about seeing this picturesque adobe-colored town flattened in its valley between mountain peaks. He heard voices coming from inside the collapsed buildings, they became fewer as the day went on. He helped rescue two people, including a girl who was kept alive by her parents bodies pressed above her. He stepped on bodies. Not 24 hours after his return, another 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit the area, resulting in further landslides and death. Thank God he is back safely.

Similarly, I am dumbfounded by the luck that Kate and I had in not being in the epicenter area when the earthquake hit. Though it's a little-known part of a small mountainous region of China (not even a blip on most people's maps), Kate and I became intimately familiar with this area during the last three weeks as we hiked Qing Cheng Mountain (now majorly cut off from outside transport lines and buried), and went horseback riding in Song Pan (the road and rest stops we used to and from no longer exist.)

Honestly, I'm getting a little scared again. Aftershocks keep hitting, and one can't help but wonder how many 5.0 magnitude earthquakes these buildings can withstand...

The government is doing a great job keeping people informed through text messages on cell phones. The most recent text informed us that the road to our project sites in Dayi was closed except for government use. Another told us that the water contamination stories were scams. Good to know. I have a lot of gatorade to drink now.

The mood here is eery. The funeral outside my home continues. The bright crepe paper wheels are still leaning against the bushes outside, and the family has sat in vigil in their tent for over 24 hours now. Candles are lit. The smell of cooking oil in the air. No wailing, just quiet sitting.

It's hard not to stay glued to the news. I try to go about my day normally then cry and cry over a story telling how a parent dug through rubble with bare hands for days on end until their bloodied hands reached the cold body of their child.

How is Chengdu looking so normal in the face of this? Are we all pretending?

Relief efforts are gaining momentum, and give me glimmers of hope. The fact that my ngo's president is placing so much emphasis on sustainable relief efforts and long-term thriving communities helps me know that we won't be in-and-out handing out water bottles and leaving. We are in it to stay.

It's late, my heart hurts. My eyes are swollen. Sleep now.

Earthquake

2008-05-15T10:29:00.008+08:00

For family and friends, I'm OK.
(and you can help the healing process by clicking HERE)

On Monday afternoon, a 7.9 earthquake rocked Sichuan Province. The death toll is around 15,000 and climbing, and the estimated damage is at $20mil.

Kate and I were thankfully together when it struck and were able to escape the crumbling bank that we were inside. We dodged falling concrete, rolling cars. Walked three hours in the direction of home as the roads sat in a standstill. Felt continuing aftershocks and just held on to each other. Slept in a field.

Most of Chengdu fared well, even as aftershocks continue to rock the city. I cannot say that much for the project villages our microfinance unit operates within. Factories destroyed, villages crumbling. The Rabbit King, Queen, and family are alive. Their factory is badly damaged. I received a call from a 17-year-old rabbit farmer and loan recipient telling me to be careful, then later explaining that his village was falling apart. I felt powerless, anxious, and frustrated.

Our office is working quickly to partner with international donors while using our on-the-ground capacity to deliver post emergency relief aid to earthquake survivors. They need support for rebuilding and repairing damaged homes and village infrastructure. We've got the partners, the local knowledge, and - with help - the funds. In the midst of my own anxiety, fears, and frustrations, I'm deeply grateful for the compassion I feel emanating from around the globe, and am struck by your deep uniting urge to transform anxiety into action.

Please send cash and prayers.

We came to Sichuan to do community development, and that that's exactly what we plan to keep on doing, now from the ground up.

Earthquake stories and experiences:

We've felt dozens of strong aftershocks that make it hard to relax again. I slept in a field the first night with a bunch of other residents staying away from their tall apartment buildings (felt a little like Relay for Life...), then slept under a table the next night as a few more aftershocks rocked our 6th story apartment. All friends are ok. Last night I slept in my bed for the first time, though I woke up at 5am to feel our house shaking again. The aftershocks keep coming.

Yesterday there was a water scare. A rumor started that a chemical plant had exploded and contaminated the water supply. Our water was cut. We ran outside to buy water and found lines going down the street out of every store. There was no water to be found, so we bought bottled tea and watermelons. Water returned later that evening and the government sent out a press release that the water was fine. There is news that many dams to the north have developed major cracks...not sure what that means for us.

I find myself staring at the cracks in my walls and wondering whether they were there before the earthquake. We live in the 6th story of a building, so emergency bags still sit by the front entrance in case we need to make a quick exit.

While walking back home from the bank up north (where we were during the earthquake, having ironically just handed over our passports and bank cards to the teller...we found them a few hours afterwards), to our apartment at the south end of town, I was afforded a walking tour of the city post-earthquake. The streets were in a stand-still. Sirens were blaring everywhere. People, however, remained relatively calm. Based on the numbers of people filling the streets, sidewalks, riverbanks, fields and parks on patio chairs and blankets, one might have mistaken the scene for a public festival. I heard lots of laughing as people compared the clothes they had run out in. Pajamas, nightgowns, house slippers, and undershirts were the norm.

On one sidewalk I spotted my friends, two Scottish sisters who sing at the Shangri La Pub. They were sitting on the side of the road, shoeless, dirty, and one of them naked but for the luxury hotel robe wrapped around her. We swapped escape stories. Ours, of running down a swaying spiral staircase, watching pieces of the building fall off around us. Theirs, of scrambling down 14 flights of stairs together, only to end up in a boiler room, dodging pipes and tanks as they desperately searched for an exit.
"I was just screamin' Our Father! Our Father!, trying to get a prayer out as I was runnin' down the stairs!" said the little sister. The older sister laughed and said, "I was naked as could be you know, robe flappin' in the wind as I went runnin'!"

There is a running competition for who can be on the phone with me while I experience an aftershock. So far I believe Dan, Mom, Wink, and Caitlin have all scored 1 point each. Dad gets half a point for messaging me in the middle of one.

There is a funeral going on outside of my house. Two dozen crepe-paper flower wheels as big as car windshields have been placed around the entrance of my building, and a make-shift tent has been set up, under which families have been cooking, playing cards, and quietly talking all day. The crepe-paper wheels have the name of a school teacher who died in one of the collapsed schools on Monday.

We planned to go out to our project villages today now that aftershocks have died down, but the government has closed the freeways to cars not approved by authorities. We are not sure when we will be able to make it out there. Very frustrating.

Zoom! Back to the Tibetan Pleateau.

2008-02-04T10:50:00.000+08:00

It's Spring Festival (boom! fireworks! families! spicy food!), and I'm off to celebrate for the week in a Tibetan homestay. God bless random meetings with perfectly wonderful potential traveling partners.
Blue skies here I come!

Also, if you're in America on Tuesday and can get out to those caucuses for me, feel free to be inspired by the photo below.

10 Tips for Chinese Success

2008-01-28T10:53:00.000+08:00

I recently wrote these tips for a friend traveling to China in the near future:

1. Know the Chinese characters for man and woman. This will help you recognize and walk into the right bathrooms.

1.5. Bring your own stash of kleenex with you everywhere. (related to point #1)

2. Practice squatting and using chopsticks (not at the same time). Both are useful skills.

3. Trains are fun! But spring for a sleeper over a hardseat - it's worth it (hard, not soft, is fine and usually results in a more eventful train ride).

4. Baozi. (bow-zuh). Find it, eat it, thank me later.

5. Baijiu. (buy-geo). This liquor will kick your butt (and your stomach lining) - careful not to get into a toasting match with a businessman. You will lose.

6. Trust all things that come out of steaming circular basket stacks.

7. Trust nothing that resembles uncooked greens. (woe is the salad!)

8. Lots of curious people will say hello to you! Say hello back, and make a friend.

9. Standards of vegetarianism should be relaxed heavily in China. For instance, tofu covered in pork sauce may be your best bet at any given restaurant. (though eggs scrambled with tomatoes tend to be a popular menu item).

10. Lines are full-contact sports. Grandmothers will elbow you. Do not take offense.

Old Lang Zhong

2008-01-13T21:02:00.000+08:00

Lang Zhang is is covered in black tile roofs and grinning old men.

Kate and I had a ball wandering around this sleepy old town, despite rain and cold and "off-season" (which, after my experiences in Tibet and now Lang Zhong, I refuse to believe exists). Thanks to the most comfortable beds in China (seriously), we got an amazing night's sleep, and woke up very late. After a breakfast of suspicious-tasting beef noodles, we scrambled around the side of a muddy mountain and looked at 1000-year-old cave carvings and a huge female buddha. Her size paled in comparison to the behemoth I recently saw in Le Shan, but she had her own lovely way about her - offerings of apples, incense, and firecrackers (bang!bang!bang!) were all freshly scattered at her feet.

We met the caretakers, who gave us lunch rather than directions to another part of the mountain. They said, "No! Too muddy. Come eat lunch with us! Now!" and we said ok, and sat by their fire chatting with the elderly men while an aproned wrinkled woman cooked us steaming bowls of delicious cabbage noodles. Afterwards, they put on their blazers and we took their portrait outside.

We never managed to make our way to the other side of the mountain. We've decided to come back later in the spring, printed portrait in hand, and try our luck again at those directions, and maybe another bowl of those noodles.

Silence

2007-12-16T16:46:00.000+08:00

The mountains! We climbed alongside pilgrims sporting yak skin boots and sheep skin coats. The women wore turquoise and silver braided thick into their hair. While we wheezed and stumbled at the ever-higher altitudes, they calmly span their prayer wheels and watched their breath puff in the air.

We climbed up and up (though really not that far once we looked back down, we noted sheepishly) until we arrived at a hermitage made up of linked stupas and caves. In one cave we found a hermit flanked by a yak butter lamp, a tanga painting, smooth rock walls, and a thermos for tea. He had lived in that cave for ten years. Mum asked what the best and worst parts of hermit-dome were. Best: the silence. Worst: the first year of silence. Like all worth-while things, deep silent peace takes some adjusting to, he said. He blessed our foreheads with water and taught us how to say goodbye properly before shooing us out of his cave.

Farther up the mountain, we added our prayer flag chain to the mountainside already thick with flapping primary colors and prayed for peace, inner and outer. I found a man's hat in a shrub and wore it jauntily down the mountain, then mum tried to steal the cover of a mountain-side toilet because it looked to her like found-art. We reminisced about the Perthies we met the day before and how nice it had been to take a meal with complete strangers from Australia (Perth, your love letter may be coming soon), then sang some Christmas songs as we found our breath coming back to us.

At the bottom of the trail, we were greeted by the compulsory welcome-to-Tibet sign: a shaggy yak. He nodded as we took our compulsory yak photo, then shooed us from his spiritual spot and returned to his silence.

A Love Letter

2007-12-13T20:53:00.000+08:00

Dear Tibet,

You had me at hello. Or rather, at the deep red brass-knockered double doors leading into that hello. Though I know this is old news, I figure you deserve to hear it personally: You are breath-taking. Give me an expansive sky and a heavy dose of rugged terrain and you'll have my heart indefinitely. (Which you do.)

Today hundreds of pilgrims fresh from the mountains led the way into your Potala Palace, and the personal quarters of the Dalai Lamas (#5-14). There, they prayed, prostrated, and spooned thick yak butter from their personal supplies into huge burning copper bowls. They taught their russet-potato-cheeked children to do the same.

Then, a courtyard full of shouting monks debated the nature of emptiness, jumping and smacking their hands, thwacking their beads, and swirling dust around their crimson robes. We've only just met, and already you're showing me this? What intimate beauty.

This is daily life for you, Tibet, but it is astounding to me. I mean, honestly, you've fed me yak meat 4 times in the last 2 days! (Don't get me wrong, it's delicious. Especially the Momo dumplings...Chengdu's dumplings would blush.) Tomorrow I plan to follow the pilgrims again - this time around one of your mecca-like clock-wise prayer circuits. I've resisted your chunky turqoise and weavings so far, but a girl can only hold out so long...and it probably won't be long, as I'm afraid my judgement has been more than mildly impaired by your intoxicating razor-thin air.

You fill me up in that big blue sky, sharp mountains, beaming ruddy faces sort of way that embodies so many of my favorite places from Durango, CO to the High Atlas of Morocco to Taos... to you, Tibet.

This is more than a mild infatuation.
Love,
Meg

Cambodia!

2007-12-02T00:12:00.000+08:00

I've just a smidge of time on this fine Cambodian day to write:

Hello! Following an overnight layover in Thailand (where I mistook an elephant for a dumpster...because really, which is more likely to stand idley in a city alley?) I am in Batdambang with friends and my mum. We travelled here with a Colorado-based Cambodian family, previously displaced following the Pol Pot regime. (Here is where I note that if the last sentence left you mystified, I would ask you to pick up a copy of "Survival in the Killing Fields" asap.)

During the last few days (when not exploring the jungley 7th Wonder of World, oh Angkor Wat you have my heart!), we have been exploring the divine match-up between local need in Tehan and international funds. Based on these: a bathroom has begun to be built, an english teaching program has been started for grades 7 and 8, the poorest of the village have received bundles of basic essentials, the leaders have requested and received rocks to keep the road from washing out during monsoon season, and a possible link-up with the Heifer Project has been investigated.

In the grand scheme, this mini-week's work is amounting to just a drop in the international bucket...but it is a lovely drop.

Also, last week I ate fried bees and that is worth noting here. More to come! (posts, not bees.)

Dual Lives

2007-11-12T10:25:00.000+08:00

I'm sitting in Starbucks right now (Starbucks!) drinking a tiny little latte and using up their quick-as-a-bunny wireless connection. During the two months since I moved into my current apartment it has turned into something of a construction war-zone, so minor things like water, electricity, gas, and - most recently - internet tend to come and go as they please. Other things that leave at will: sidewalks, roads, man-size pot holes (I have not fallen in. Yet.), huge rubble piles, and screeching-slamming-something-MUST-be-dying-middle-of-the-night sounds.
Ahhhh mmmmm. Home. In any case, internet-less as we are, I venture to the nearby international haven of the frappuccino. If that is even a word.

I live a dual-life here, split between Chengdu-the-Booming-Metropolis and the earthy villages scattered around Dayi. In Chengdu I research, connect, fix visa issues (aiya!), do extreme bike-riding to and from the office, and indulge in such pleasures as coffee and hot showers. In Dayi, I listen and look and breathe in the slightly fresher air. I play with puppies and piglets. I interview potential microloan applicants. I marvel.

Dayi

In Xian He, an old woman peels a green head-sized citrus fruit with her strong, weathered hands. She passes the sour chunks to the party of microloan researchers and village authorities standing in her courtyard then goes about her business feeding the rabbits, herding the piglets, and making whooping noises at the chickens. She is one of our loan applicants. She would like 2000 RMB (about $270) to expand her rabbit enclosure so that she can breed a few more rabbits. With luck and time, the effort will allow her to afford regular meat in her own diet.

Another man would like to use his $270 to invest in the village's communal bamboo factory. Faced with intense poverty and encroaching deforestation, he and twenty of his fellow villagers pooled their resources to create a system that would utilize one of their most abundant resources: thick-stalked bamboo, the local "weed" that shoots up everywhere and has a growth cycle of a mere 3 years. When chopped, sliced thin, woven, and pressed, the bamboo stalks make a sturdy plywood that rivals the strength of regular wood, and can be sold at a profit. Brilliant. Yes.

In between these site visits, we pause for lunch and card playing with the head of the village and the village accountant, both members of the communist party. We play "Struggle Against the Landlord", a favorite local game that involves two "family members" using their cards to struggle against the evil "landlord", who, of course, is given an unfair advantage (cultural relic, anyone?). The game is a cross between Poker, B.S., and a melodrama. We scream and scheme and slam our cards on the table with thwacks of our knuckles. Meanwhile, a live chicken suspended by its feet is carried into the kitchen. Later, it arrives on the table in three different dishes and a soup. Lunch.

So...yes, Starbucks. "I must be back in Chengdu," I think to myself. The clean wooden tables scattered with biscotti and business cards are quite the contrast from yesterday's ducks paddling through rice paddies. I didn't see the cow that my latte came from, nor did I discuss life-goals with the Barista.
Back to life #2.

Like a War... and a Waltz

2007-11-08T23:09:00.000+08:00

Oh man, life is sweet. I mean really, really, knock-your-socks-off, head-over-heels, candy-apple-dripping sweet. Reasons:

1. Eaves-dropping on the rehearsal of a group of retired Chengdu musicians who have taken it upon themselves to preserve their local music tradition in the face of encroaching Taiwanese pop.

2. Bang! Bang! Bang! Go the giant painted drums. Then erhu enters, rich and flowing – I mistake it for a chorus of voices. A reeded trumpet and mini mouth-powered organs pulse along behind strange zig-zagged mandolins and a cello.
“What does this sound like to you?” He Bei asks me.
“Like a war”, I say, “…and a waltz.”

3. The first director is young and energetic. He demands attention by yelling and pointing and looking fiercely into his musicians’ eyes while he pauses the score. He winks. They start again, stronger.

4. The cellist looks like a lizard. He wears a blue cap over his taut, thin skin and peers up from behind his hand-written music. He is about two hundred years old and half the size of his cello.

5. The drummers are the same boys I met in middle school band. They stand in the back of the room and bang on cue, then smoke cigarettes and try to look like they own the joint.

6. An old, old, old man enters the room, (three hundred years old, maybe), and the energy changes. His entire wrinkled self is a smile. He takes his time walking to the podium, and the fierce director steps down. This new director is a Buddha. He is a Saint. He is absolutely, definitely, “chosen,” “enlightened,” and/or following “the way.” Or he's got some great skin cream - this man radiates goodness!

7. The buddha raises his small arms and they flop in the air the way a child’s might as she imitates a conductor. Swoosh. Swish. Swishity swoosh. His wrinkled wrists, arms, hips, and eyebrows all take their turns dancing out the opening measures. I am at a loss. Where is the beat? The musicians find it before I do and the waltzing war begins again to the rhythm of his smiling, swimming appendages.

8. Buddha grins. I inhale. The musicians play. They repeat this process every Tuesday and Thursday and I am invited.

...and a few more personal reasons why life is so divinely sweet:
being in love with someone in a nearby timezone (oh holy skype...)
parental units visiting oh-so-soon.
weekends full of cutting-edge intelligent female earth-shaking energy
the true ridiculous nature of this incredible year.

Santa's lap

2007-11-08T23:08:00.000+08:00

The camera shutter snapped open and I stared back into it, tears brimming my lower lids. The kind assistant brushed my hair out of my eyes while helping me tilt my head slightly. She spoke words I couldn't understand as my cheeks became hot and wet. Everyone gave each other a look that said "maybe we should do this another time..."

Childhood memories of Santa's lap? I wish. No Ho-Ho-Ho-ing man sent me into this tizzy. Rather the, kindly staff of a Chinese visa office (location: my block, China), paid witness to this regressive event.

Staring down at the most recent rendition of my business reference, the visa officer looked at me with those "oh god, i'm so sorry i'm the one who has to say this" eyes and said (to Kate, who translated) "The first sentence is wrong. The paper is wrong. We need a new one."
The "new one," I learned, could not be phoned in or faxed or emailed.
It had to be hand-delivered. Again. From another town. Ok. I could handle that.
And I needed to get back on the bus right then to retrieve it. Ok, I could handle that too.
And it would cost 1500 RMB. Fine.
And we should probably just take the picture right then to get it out of the way. Fine, fine.
And...well...your head needs to be tilted a little more to the left and...

The tears start brimming. I am four years old again, on Santa's lap. I am excited to be there and I know this is important, but i can't understand what anyone is saying. Smile? Now?! This is scary!! I am confused, and why is that lady touching me??? The tears start flowing, and do not stop.

In China, I can connect with eyes but not many words. I am working with a toddler's vocabulary, and three months of straight-forward openness to every (in)experience has left me a little raw. In front of that camera lens and the unsuspecting visa staff, I finally took full ownership of what it means to employ a toddler's vocabulary, and wailed.

Men in Uniform

2007-11-01T22:43:00.000+08:00

I'm losing respect for the uniformed guards of China.
I've always been one who smiles when she sees a policeman on the corner (order! security! someone to ask for directions!). During the last few weeks, however, the uniformed men protecting the local establishments have done little to garner my respect. The vendors in these stories are neither the heroes nor victims of this story, rather, they are the canvas upon which the guards painted a portrait of the nature of their current profession.

Case 1:
In Beijing I visited a fantastic market overflowing with silk paintings, ornate rusty red Tibetan chests, and Mao paraphernalia priced according to its relative location to the exit. (don't shop in the first aisle. they know you don't know the prices.) Just outside this bustling bargaining market, I saw a few informal vendors trying to sell furs that were definitely illegal, and perhaps endangered.

One vendor carrying one basket of furs sprinted across the street, six guards in tow. As the first guard caught up to him, the other five began laughing and hitting him, throwing his basket of illegal furs to the ground. He agreed to comply with them, and allowed himself to be led back to the market by guard 1 while guard 2 held his hands behind his back. Guards 3-6 found themselves left out and bored, so they alternately hit his basket to the ground again and again, then kicked him in the knees and back as he stoops to pick up his merchandise. A random pedestrian joined the fun and laughed while he kicked the vendor to the ground once again.

Case 2:
Back in Chengdu, Kat and I arrived at the train station after our 30 hour ride from Beijing (much comfier this time - thank God for the simple comfort and companionship of the hard sleeper cabin!). Outside the train station, a poor minority woman (not of Han origins, probably from nearby western sichuan) was on her hands and knees, gathering the pomegranates that a smug security guard had just knocked out of her hands. She scrambled to save one from beneath the feet of the passing pedestrians, but the guard's buddy beat her to it and kicked it into traffic. She ran after it, while guard 1 patted his buddy on the back. Then they spyed another fruit vending woman across the street and jogged towards her, leaving the pomegranate woman to watch as cars destroyed her produce.

These vendors were selling their goods in vaguely illegal territory, so action against them was warranted. However, the guards obviously do not trust themselves to know what that action should be. They are given enough authority to hold a baton (and sometimes a gun), but rarely enough to make potent decisions. The system breeds frustration, boredom, and one-up-manship rather than model citizenry. This, combined with a pervasive "us v. them" mentality results in situations in which these men behave like cruel schoolboys. Justice is one thing, derision is another.

2007-10-25T08:20:00.000+08:00

Yesterday evening, a telephone conversation with my mum erupted in laughter mid-way when one of my fast-paced explanatory sentences was: "So I decided I needed to go to Beijing for the weekend."

::laughter::

Mum made me stop and evaluate the uniqueness of that last sentence (ok, yes, I admitted, I probably wouldn't have many opportunities to say that again during this lifetime...or would I?), before I continued speed-talking to explain that I'm leaving Chengdu for the weekend and no, don't worry! it'll be great, I'm going to the international business ethics conference and then meeting with other movers and shakers in the China social entrepreneur scene, including some fellow Midd grads and the directors of a china-based online microfinance network. Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

Running to the airport now, and then more blog updates in the coming days. Things have been happening fast and furious during the last few weeks, and there are stories that need to be told.

Bike-Buying 101

2007-09-19T15:34:00.000+08:00

After five weeks of pedestrian-living, you've decided to take your next step towards independence and buy a bike! Congratulations! Here is a step-by-step guide to purchasing and maintaining your vehicle in Chengdu:

1. Mention your desire for a bike to any and all open ears. Wait.

2. Hear tell of the "bike bridge" from another expat who heard it from a friend who hear about it from some guy on a bus...

3. Go to said "bike bridge" between the hours of 4 and 6pm on any weekday. Do not arrive early. Do not arrive late.

4. You will not see any bikes. You will not see any people, for that matter. Don't let this bother you, and don't make any sudden movements. Just stand on a corner with that certain je ne sais quoi "I want to buy a bike" look in your eyes. If you feel compelled, mime a biking motion every few minutes to catch the attention of no one in particular.

5. Psst!, you will hear from a bush behind you. Turn around, and you'll notice five men sitting in some bushes and playing cards. Without looking you in the eye, they'll ask the secret pass-question "Ni yao mei zi xing che ma?" (you want to buy a bike?). To which you give your secret pass-code response "Yao." (yup, I do.)

6. The card men will tell you to walk the other way across the street. Do as they say, and find yourself once again surrounded by nothing in particular with no one in particular ready to sell you a bike. Stop. Wait.

7. A pink polo-shirted man will approach you and once again ask the secret question. With your confirmation, he'll lead you down the street to a parking lot where 20 rusted bikes are lined up next to playground equipment. Now you're getting close!

8. Pink Polo will point to the most expensive (least rusted) of the lot and tell you it is the only one for sale today. His friends (4 others who have appeared and begun to play on the playground equipment) will gather and make suggestions on the price-points of other bikes, which all magically become "for sale" once you express enough interest.

9. Choose an ok-looking bike (only semi-rusty, with a basket), and spend the next five to twenty-five minutes haggling over the price, whether "cost of living" has increased recently, and whether that is a good excuse for Pink Polo to charge more than $15 for an old, probably stolen bike. If it gets tiring, hang out on the playground equipment and wait for the prices to drop.

10. Pay $10. Know you've been had, but smile and shake hands anyway, since the playground equipment made the experience a little more fun. Buy a bike-lock ASAP, but not from them. (where do you think all these bikes came from?)

11. Congratulations! You've bought a bike from the Chengdu Bike Mafia. Ride off into the sunset while checking the brakes.

(11.5 Look for the bike-lot the next day and see that it is completely empty. Pink Polo is gone, as are the card men and the playground loiterers. Was it all a dream? Think about this as the brakes give out while you are riding through traffic.)

Meg In Journalism!

2007-09-12T23:06:00.000+08:00

The movers and shakers at Abroad View Magazine have invited me to join the ranks of their global team of citizen journalists with a monthly column of my own! Here's a taste:

When discussing gender roles with with my Peul Bande father, I asked him:
"Are women good with money?"

"No, of course not," he said.

"Who is in charge of the communal village collection system?" I asked.

"My wife! She is the president of the women's society."

"And what funded the new machinery in the peanut field?"

"The women’s communal pot. The women decided to buy the machinery."

"And have the machines improved the condition of life here?"

"Yes. They have brought in more money."

"Are women good with money?"

"No. Women are not intelligent."

Intrigued by this obvious dichotomy in thought and by the enormous power the village women had begun to harness with their rotating lending system, I asked more questions...

Read on...

Ad Hoc Diplomacy

2007-09-11T14:59:00.000+08:00

A note on 9-11:

Two years ago, I spent the annivesary of September 11th in a Muslim nation.
This year, I spend it watching Nuclear-armed North Korea play the Attacking-Iraq U.S. team in the Women's World Cup, here in Communist Chengdu, China.

It's all a matter of perspective.
Rather, one might say that two years ago I spent the day of September 11th discussing international relations with Senegalese housewives and unemployed uncles while sitting on a rooftop and looking at the stars. I learned that they did not view the U.S. negatively per se, but they did have the unmistakable feeling that as Muslims their beliefs might not be welcomed in my country. I told them their instincts may be right. This year, I will sit in a stadium and watch two groups of female athletes - who, outside of this stadium are politically unable to interact - meet and play with one another. Football (soccer) may be the name of the game, but I see an ongoing diplomacy project. From a Senegalese rooftop to a Chinese turf, ad-hoc diplomacy is my true way of commemorating this day.

On Saturday I was deeply humbled.
A single trip to Xian He to meet with the villagers who we will be microfinancing this year was enough to snap me out of my dazed space of solo cultural-immersion and chinese learning. It's been easy to forget why exactly I am here, in the midst of practicing tones and losing myself in vegetable markets. This weekend, I remembered.

I am here to witness choice.

This past weekend, I watched villagers come together in their newly-built community room to decide collectively how they would like to build their future. One group made a grid of crops and animal husbandry seasons, checking off each month when an animal or crop needed particular attention. It became clear that July through September were busy months for harvesting and husbandry. Ok, they said, we'll focus on things we can do in October.

I am here to listen.

Another group was made up of the elders of the village. They talked more slowly and deliberately, naming each year of the past twenty and ticking off the historic events of note. I was struck by how many of the technological advances that the US gradually received over one hundred years had arrived within a mere twenty (or ten).

1983 - Electricity
1999 - Telephones
2001- Satelite TV
2003 - The construction of the village road
2007 - Clean Water

...in what kind of a situation does satelite tv arrive before roads and water, I wondered. It sounds backwards to me. Perhaps I was backwards for needing to ask.

I am here to support.

Seeing a white face at the village meeting was certainly startling for most of the villagers, and exciting too. With my presence came the words "international" and "support." Though I felt very much the fish-out-of-water in the meeting, it was apparent that fitting in wasn't my job.
Without words, my presence suggested a deeper level of support and care than a simple check could do. I was there not just as a funder, but as a participant, a support, another warm body in the room to sit in a chair and say "Yes. I want to be here for this. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

I am here to write it down.

I've struggled during the last few weeks with wanting to blog, but feeling too shy to sit down and do it. I know I've missed things, and a nagging voice in me tells me that I shouldn't write until I'm ready to get it all down, once and for all. I'm getting over it. I know I haven't written about my birthday yet (it was wonderful, thank you! We made dumplings with my host-family and then went bowling. I had no idea that a mid-western-esque bowling alley full of shiny pink and orange balls sat kitty-corner to one of my favorite hot-pot places...China is indeed full of surprises), and I know that there are extroardinary cultural moments that haven't yet made their way onto the blog (the chinese word for "good" is literally woman+son. Or rather, "goodness" can be defined as a woman having a son. More on what words say about culture later), yes, moments will be lost.

Yes, yes, yes.
Knowing all this, I am in the process of swallowing my pride and accepting that this will be an incredibly imperfect document. That aside, I'm here to get the word out about rural community, development, and life in modern China. Thus, I sit. I write. I share.

Hearts and Arteries

2007-08-28T13:34:00.000+08:00

I just returned from Xi-an, the original heart of China - before things went coastal.

Xi-an beats out an irregular rhythm of ancient Terracotta tombs and modern sprawl. Late at night, it pulls its rhythms from the glowing red Muslim market just below the Drum Tower. There - surrounded by ox horn combs, warrior trinkets, caged crickets, and lamb stew - sits a woman who nightly creates her own heartbeat for the city. Pulling a mallet against the ridged wooden back of a hand-carved frog, she beats out: Cr-crk Cr-crk Cr-crk.

Train tracks pump fresh blood in and out of this ancient heart once a day from Chengdu. At the train station, I was swept up in the jostling current as I joined the crowded platform for Xi-an-bound passengers. Our bodies were pressed tight into too little space, and our belongings swam around each other. At 1:30, the gates opened. Bags and babies and bowls of noodles were thrust over heads and between legs as the current of bodies streamed forward into the train cars.

On the way back, I learned how lucky I was to have snagged a "sleeper seat" for the initial 16 hour ride into Xi-an. In a sleeper, you can lie down in a small cot stacked under two others, with just enough room to sit up and look out the window at the rice paddies flashing by.

On the return trip to Chengdu, I had a ticket for the "hard seat" cabin, where spots on benches crowded into the small car had been auctioned for 90 RMB a piece. I hustled to my bench spot in order to claim it and some baggage space as well. I watched as 80 more people managed to fit their bags overhead and squeeze onto the benches. An ever-increasing flow streamed into the car along with luggage, and children, and indignant, pointy elbows. More streamed in, and more. Though the flow could no longer sit down, (the initial 80 could barely fit on the benches), it would not stop. The flow crowded into all the spaces left and continued to squeeze farther and farther in as the car's capacity doubled and tripled before my eyes.

"My" bench was no longer mine, but also seemed to belong to a middle-aged woman, her daughter, an elderly man sitting on a bucket, and a toddler who had begun to cry after soiling herself within the first five minutes of the ride. The unlucky passenger stuck between the soiled child and me nearly vomited. Concerned about my own ability to make it to the toilet (which was 15 meters and 50 aisle-blocking people away), I leaned over and asked my friend Lin Fang about when and how she planned to go to the bathroom during the next 16 hours. She said she didn't plan on it, and - glancing at my stockpile of bottled water - suggested that I shouldn't either. The bathroom was yet another area of prime real estate and, she continued, it's not uncommon for people to sit in the sinks.

Any - and all - leftover spaces in the vessel had been sold to willing blood. The cabin reeked of sweat, urine, and pungent spiced meat around mealtimes.

Though our 16 hours in a locomotive suggested travel, we were all stuck in a perpetual stand-still. The train pushed and pumped forward, but bodies just creaked and moaned, none able to counter the train's forward motion with any movement of their own. I had read in my guidebook about the mysteries of Xi-an, the delapidated heart of China, but from within the sardined cabin I found myself more taken by this heart's very clogged artery.

...back in Chengdu now, continuing Chinese tutoring at a break-neck pace. My tutor is a very patient woman.

An Unfamiliar Wedding

2007-08-14T17:39:00.000+08:00

Like Auntie and Uncle Wang, we'll start the day with a bit of housekeeping.
If you've written a comment (or tried to), I apologize. The comment section of the blog was temporarily screwy. Thanks to my tinkering father and copy-pasting mum, it is back online. You can post freely, and I can respond personally to each one. Responses to prior comments can be found in the comment section for "Stubbed Toe Wisdom". After this, they'll appear in whichever comment section they are responding to. And I'd be happy to hear your responses to...

Pig's feet. I ate them this weekend. Also: Cow's tongue. The veins of something I cannot describe, along with its roasted skin. A turtle.

Yup, you guessed it - I went to a wedding! It was as atypical a wedding as I might be able to imagine. No church (not a big surprise), no procession, no rows of dressed-up relatives and friends holding hankies. No vows, no ring exchange, no "I do's". No. This wedding - like many modern chinese weddings - took place in a restaurant.

To get there, the Wangs and I walked a sweaty mile, took a bus through the city, and dodged some rick-shaws as we crossed the road to the restaurant. We were forcefully escorted towards the bride and groom. The couple smiled at us, yelled at us, pushed candy into our hands and hurriedly pulled us towards them for an over-rehearsed photography session. Upstairs, a large reception room was full of un-dressed up people talking loudly, drinking, spitting sunflower husks this way and that, and taking occasional breaks to toast the bride and groom and eat enormous piles of food. Enter, stage right: Pig's feet soup. "Good for your skin," the pimpled girl next to me explained, ladling more into her rice bowl.

In-between the eating, toasting, and cigarettes came Ma-Jiang. As I stood next to one of the dozens of green playing tables scattered throughout the room, I asked "Jing, what is Ma-Jiang like?". What had been intended as an innocent question turned into a 4 hour tutorial by all the Wang women. Here is what I learned:

This Domino-esque game consists of one green felt-covered table, 100-some tiles, and 3 suits. Through an elaborate shuffling process in which tiles are stacked, re-stacked, moved and divied, you get 13 tiles. (Except sometimes when you get 14). Each turn you pick up a mystery tile and throw out a less useful tile. The object of the game is to get all of your tiles into triplets and runs before anyone else does, sort of like Rummy. A few catches: you can only have two suits by the end of the game, you must watch the suits others are discarding in order to play defensively, and if you discard something that someone else can use to complete a triplet or quadruple of a tile, you'll owe them money when the game is over (in this friendlier case, we traded playing cards and "tsk's" rather than yuan).

You can witness Ma-Jiang veterans in their natural element - huddled around their green tables on sidewalks and under trees - on any given afternoon in Chengdu. Though known by foreign visitors, perhaps, as the old ladies' sport, I beg to differ. It is rough, it is fast, and it leaves little room for slow-judgement or error. The rest of the guests at the party emphasized this point by watching my moves closely over my shoulder, then correcting me loudly, explaining with fast Sichuan accents exactly what I had done wrong. Thankfully the tiles provided a visual reference, so I was able to follow along with most of these verbal assaults. By chance, I won a few rounds, but mainly I did fair-to-poor. That fact not-withstanding, I earned major points for grasping (barely) the rules of the game by the end of our marathon session.

Whew! 6 hours, two exotic meals, dozens of toasts (at the young women's table, we used orange soda rather than the hard alcohol at the men's tables), and 20 rounds of Ma-Jiang later, the wedding began to die down. We said our further congratulations to the exhausted bride and groom (both of whom had paused during the festivities to intervene in my Me-Jiang games when i made particularly bad moves), and walked towards the bus, then home.
Today Auntie Wang and Uncle Wang were reunited after his trip to Tibet. No big hugs or kisses, but when he saw she was folding laundry, he silently left the room where we were watching his vacation slideshow and held the hangers for her while she hung sheets. Ceremonies aside, unions can cross cultures fluidly.

p.s. Jackie - pictures coming soon. sadly, the camera forgot to come to the wedding.

2007-08-10T14:08:00.000+08:00

Yesterday the sky turned grey and the trees starting dancing. Great kite-flying weather. From the wide window of our office I could see over the river below. Three retired men were out flying long-tailed kites, and from my vantage-point on the 9th story, they looked like scarves dancing above the city. Very Arabian.

Following that ominous sky was a huge storm. It began thrashing in the middle of the night, waking me up at 3am. It was one of those alarming - but exciting - leftover-from-the-typhoon-type storms with lots of thunder and lightning (very close to my window!) and rain pounding staccato rhythms on every hard surface. I sat up and watched it for awhile before going back to sleep. I woke up again to a softer pattering of drips from the roof, and bits of persistent light inching through the window.

Later in the morning, as I was padding through the kitchen, Auntie Wang grabbed me, pulled me to the front of the stove and thrust a pair of chopsticks in my hands. Through an elaborate dance of gestures, we established that I was in charge of cooking breakfast. Auntie Wang provided all the seasoning and spices (unmarked in interesting jars...i need to find out what those were!), and cooking tips (more emphatic gestures). I stirred the noodles in my pajamas while Auntie Wang smiled and tsked her tongue in approval as she leaned over and wiped up the water puddling by the door.

The rain was still splashing as my tutor and I walked together towards our daily lesson. She told me that the storm is part of a typhoon that hit her hometown yesterday. Grinning, she said that last year a typhoon took the roof off her house, and her father patched it in the sunshine the next day. I asked if her family would ever think of moving to a new (typhoon-free) city, and she said no, they love their home. Besides, the days after typhoons are always so beautiful.
Hadn't I noticed?

The Return of Meggy

2007-08-08T11:41:00.000+08:00

18 hours of flight, 4 airports, a bevy of "interesting" seatmates and one ocean later, I've made it. I was greeted at the airport by three grinning members of my host family holding a large hand-written sign reading "MEG!" What a welcome.

Now I sit in the Wang's house at mid-day. Forest and Jing (host-sisters) have left with Uncle Wang for the morning. Auntie Wang is humming a warbly chinese tune and preparing lunch in the kitchen (my best guess based on the past few meals would be: rice! green beans! hot pickled beans! chicken! bony, bony fish! seaweed soup!) If we are having leftovers as well, we may have some of a new addition I discovered at breakfast: red-bean filled 'cinnamon rolls.' A bit of a shock to occidental taste-buds, but tasty.

Two surprising features of note thusfar:

1. Apparently, my chopstick use is quite advanced. (Bravo Mum and Dad for forcing them on me at a young age via bolgolge and raw garlic.) Forest commented in a complaining fashion that I use chopsticks more properly than she does, and couldn't I cut it out while we're in front of her mom?

2. Despite 18 years of verbal protest on my part, I have apparently returned to the name "Meggy". Though I introduce myself as Yang Meiqi, (sort of like a backwards China-fied version of my name, pronounced: "Yah-ng May Chee"), my family continues to call "Meggy" to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yang Meiqi has yet to receive an invitation.

I nearly signed on for an impromptu adventure to Tibet with Forest and Uncle Wang yesterday, only to be stopped by pesky visa laws that require a week of processing time for foreign visas. In retrospect, I suppose it is wise to work off the inter-continental jet-lag before adding on extreme changes in altitude. Ah well, they planted a germinating idea in my brain and I have the feeling that before the year is through I will be writing about yak-butter and wind-beaten prayer flags.

In the meantime, my chinese work-book calls, as does Auntie Wang. "Meggy! Lunch!"

Stubbed Toe Wisdom

2007-08-03T14:26:00.000+08:00

I know that a big shift is coming. Bedtime came and went tonight, as my circadian rhythms fell to the way-side. My heart is beating faster, my mind is racing ahead - clear, like a a runner's high - while my body skeptically follows. Tonight, like several others over the last few years (the night of the move to Middlebury, the night before the semester in Senegal, the hours before walking across a stage with diploma in hand), I will remain awake.

Upstairs sit three suitcases. One contains clothes. The second, years supplies of all things hygienic: toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant... The third, books and articles on the shifting winds of China's social entrepreneurs. (Oh! and a copy of Finding Nemo, for good measure). These suitcases will accompany me to Chengdu, China, and provide protection for spots of trouble along the journey. When the weather gets spotty, one will lend a jacket. When my mouth acts similarly, the second will help out with bit of floss. When my mind does the same, the third suitcase will hopefully come to the rescue with brilliant insights on microfinance, the wisdom of local metis, and the delicate intricacies of international multi-lateral relationships.

Hmmm.

In reality, I know that one can't pack suitcases of local wisdom. What I've learned in classrooms has certainly shaped my ability to receive new information from the surrounding world, but neither the world nor the classroom belong in a book or in a suitcase, as neither is a static experience. Visceral, deep, surprising knowledge is the stuff the world is made of, and certainly the best tonic for "spotty mind". Perhaps, instead, book-filled suitcase #3 might lend real mind-renewing powers by covertly nudging me back into the lively streets of China. An inconvenient suitcase location and a quick stub of the toe can do wonders for growing wisdom.

Thus, As I exit my house in t-minus two hours (not to return for 365 days), I'll remind myself of the significant weight of each of these three pieces of luggage. Warm clothes for winter, clean soaps for my body, and a lead-filled case of books that will impart more and more wisdom as it is opened less and less.

2006-06-18T20:49:00.000+08:00

My nose will get me far in China. Small, speckly, round, and turned up at the tip: it stands out in an asian crowd. Most recently, and on three seperate occasions, this nose friend of mine landed me:

1. many smiles
2. a comparison to Victoria Beckham (charming! but not too realistic by standards outside China)
3. an invitation to return to stay indefinitely in Dayi to help launch a microfinance program (see below)

Kate and I returned on Friday from our trip to Dayi. We learned much about the Rabbit King's infamous rabbit breeding operations both from the King and Queen themselves as well as on location at ten different rabbit farms where the King's philanthropy and influence can be seen first-hand. In the course of interviewing these farmers, we learned that the Rabbit King had provided each of them with free rabbits (with the Heifer Project condition that they "pass on the gift"to another family), free cages, and 10 days of intensive rabbit husbandry training. All families with more than a year of experience showed us tangible examples of their improved financial status: another year of schooling for a child, a machine to produce their own rabbit feed, a new roof over their heads, or, in some cases, televisions, cars, and vacations to Beijing. Rabbit meat is very popular in Sichuan Province.

We sat in the homes and courtyards of these farming families flanked by wandering flocks of ducklings, curious children and grandparents, and piles of fresh fruit that was eagerly pressed into our hands. After hearing of their initial successes with rabbit raising, we slowly introduced the basic concepts of using micro-loans to help farmers jump-start their mini businesses (a possibility that our sponsor organization and the Rabbit King are eager to explore together). Much to our surprise, most of the farmers had experience with borrowing money- it was generally lent by family members and was almost always used to further invest in their businesses: a new machine, another ten rabbits, expanded caging, etc. They demonstrated keen knowledge of business and entrepreneurship, as well as hopeful, but practical views of their futures.

Said a woman single-handedly taking care of her farm, 5th grader, and 70-year old parent: "Of course I think the future will be better. I don't expect a magnificent building, but I do expect a practical, better future."

These are big words coming from a population that is in a financial crisis. A clash of interests has emerged in the name of environmentalism in rural Dayi County. The local coal mine pollutes the river that runs through may of the villages, and too much of the forest land has turned into plowed squares. The government, recognizing this, is taking back a substantial amount of the farm land and returning it to the natural forest, and in 2008, the coal mine will close forever. Environmentally, these are fantastic choices. Socially? Entire communities are losing their two primary sources of income. How then, are these farmers and miners remaining hopeful? Through their relationship with the Rabbit King, they say.

We noted that confidence, trust, and education - three important factors that play a key role in successful microfinance - were the three factors that farmers brought up in each interview. These farmers are confident in their own work and their ability to eventually live off of the fruits of rabbit breeding alone, citing the RK's trainings as one of the most important pieces in jump-starting their confidence in entrepreneurship. Through experience, they have learned to trust the Rabbit King and respond well to his personal involvement in their lives. The Rabbit King and Queen celebrate birthdays and Spring Festical with their beneficiaries. They worry along with families when a loved one is sick. And - most importantly (and impressively), they remain accessible at all times. When talking to the Rabbit King, one can count on being interrupted at least four times by a digital blasting of Beethoven's Ode to Joy coming from the cell phone in his pocket. He will smile, excuse himself, listen intently to a farmer's problem, then stay on the phone as long as it takes until the problem is fixed. Every farmer we talked to had personally called the rabbit King for advice - many did so on a daily or weekly basis. (When one considers the 300,000 farmers that have made their way through the RK's training school over the last 20 years, this becomes an impressive fact.)

The Rabbit King's work made quite the impression on me, and our work seemed to make a large impression on the Rabbit King and Queen as well. As we ate hotpot with them on our last night, the Rabbit King turned to me and said: "When we start this microfinance program, you must come back to help us. You and your nose. Both are unforgettable."

2006-06-12T16:30:00.000+08:00

Just a quick note to let you know I'll be out in the rural villages (my favorite!) for the remainder of the week.

Tomorrow we head to rural Dayi for the third time since our arrival. We’ve been invited to stay for as long as we like in order to observe first-hand the operations of the Rabbit King and Queen (for explanation, see previous entries). While there, Kate, Gump (translator/yoga instructor/British-accented friend), and I will spend each day figuring out new ways to chuck ourselves into the nearby villages in order to interview the peasants about their experiences with rabbit raising and to check out their initial reactions to the concepts of microlending. (Is there a value clash here that we've not yet discovered? Where do shame, honor, and family values enter into all this? We'll see.)

Back online by Saturday. Love!

2006-06-12T15:53:00.000+08:00

Sundays are brilliant. Lazy, slow, wide open to possibilities...

Wake up whenever your eyes open. Wander to the toilet/shower (one and the same in your little abode), squat, and think about the day ahead. Oh! You found cheese at the market the other day! Celebrate by making omelets and eating them deftly (as you do everything) with chopsticks. Put on a new red dress, pop open an umbrella for shade from the sun, and grab Kate and a cab. Off to the fish markets!

Ooooh everything squirms in little tubs. Chicken carcasses hang in a row...both graceful and grotesque. A toddler with a bare bum (the norm. think: pants with a little square cut out in the back) is fascinated by the duck head he has found in a nearby stall. Neither mother nor stall owner seem concerned with his activities. A kitten darts between the legs of old men playing cards. The smells of fish and blood and people hang in the air. Whew! Out to the open market.

Here: flowers! bags! hats! A China swept away with consumerism. We are the only white faces on this bustling street of shoppers, save the rows and rows of Caucasian mannequins modeling either the tops or bottoms of the latest fashions. (but rarely both. makes you blush for no apparent reason.) Skip the textiles, head for the cool water bottles.

Off to the Wuhou Temple in the Tibetan quarter of town. An ancient, serene place with paths winding in and out of temples and bamboo forests, with heady incense in the air and glimmering gold/orange/copper/ivory fish in the streams. It is shocking to find this oasis in the middle of a 4 million-person city. The architecture is whimsical in the manner of what a more curvaceous Frank Lloyd Wright piece might look like. Squares and rectangles stack together, up and up, before spiraling out into a swirl of a rooftop, or calligraphy, or a circular door. An employee with a woven hat and blue tunic re-lights the incense while a Chinese tourist prays on a red cushion.

Outside: the closest you've come to Tibet. Prayer flags flutter, shops overflow with silver and beads and woven garments. Monks draped in crimson and gold wander down the street fingering their prayer beads, then surprise you as they hop into cabs. The western edge of Sichuan Province is indeed a former territory of Tibet...and part of that culture has seeped into this Chengdu neighborhood. Eat up every detail and keep yourself from purchasing it all. (But ____ would LOVE this!!! Fill in the blank with the name of just about every person you know.) Wander up and down the rows for as long as you now-tiring feet will allow.

The day is done. Head home with a camera full of red incense, gold calligraphy characters, deep brown-black temples, green and tan shoots, and your stunned/enthralled/freckly face. An exemplary Sunday.

2006-06-06T12:36:00.000+08:00

I'm sitting in the second story of a cafe just outside the south gate of Sichuan University, looking out a window at balconies covered in potted plants and clothes that won't dry because it's too humid. Perhaps it is time to give a few more details as to how and why I've ended up on this continent.

The Sparknotes:

I spent part of last fall doing microfinance research with women's groupements in rural Senegal - love it! Something about putting the tools for poverty alleviation right in the hands of those who care most about it (the poor) just seems to make sense to me.
Met Randy Kritkausky, President of Ecologia (www.ecologia.org) at a J-term workshop. Instant mutual admiration for one anothers' work.
Received an email from Midd's Career Service Office outlining a grant for students with unpaid international internships. Don't have one, but think: why not? Forwarded it to Randy.
Next Day: Randy says: "Wow, YES!" He has just returned from a trip to China where he met The Rabbit King, a peasant entrepreneur who grew his business from a handful of rabbits to millions (his bank account followed suit). As his wealth grew, however, The Rabbit King took it upon himself to help hundreds of thousands of his fellow peasants out of poverty via gifts of money, rabbits, and animal husbandry lessons. He expressed his wish to continue sharing with more and more of his people, as well as his awareness of his finite funds. Randy shared some of the microfinance ideas that I had discussed with him in January, and the RK got excited. Back in the States, Randy wonders whether there is a way for me to personally share these ideas with the RK...after receiving my email, he offers me a summer internship doing just that.
While waiting for word on the grant, I learn that Oxford University's World Education Corps has decided to sponsor the internship. (Oxford?! Cool.)
Realize 2 things simultaneously:
1. I do not speak Chinese (damn, no Wolof in China.)
2. I have a best friend (Kate) who does...and who is still in China, without plans for the summer. I forward this info to Randy, who agrees that the internship must be offered to her as well.
Go to bed with a stomache ache. Wake up two days later w/o an appendix. A minor set-back.
Kate signs on!
I learn that I don't get the grant. Hmm... an amazing internship doing something I love with someone I adore, on a continent I've never visited? Not about to pass this up just because of a silly grant.
Bed-rest and Fundraising can go hand-in-hand.
Learn that James Martin (of Oxford's James Martin Institute of the 21st Century) thinks that what we're doing might make a great addition to his documentary. Considers sending cameramen with us. (I do a jig.)
Nearing my fundraising goal...
Middlebury's Alliance for Civic Engagement thinks this is an amazing opportunity! They sponsor it too. I have no idea what the internship title is, but I sense it is getting longer and longer...
The cameraman punctures a lung. Maybe no documentary after all (still waiting to hear on this one.)
Plane ticket prices go up! Without finishing fundraising, I bite the bullet, say a prayer to the heavens, and buy a plane ticket to China. (I also buy travel insurance that includes a section on Death and Dismemberment...huh.)
Fundraising goal achieved! This trip is actually going to happen...
Breathe in. Breathe out. Pack, kiss Vermont goodbye, board a plane, and... boom.

And that is how this adventure came to pass.

What now?
The last few days were spent in meetings with a cast of international characters from the Ecologia staff and board; in boardrooms and tea-houses, fancy hotel lobbies and overgrown rooftops. I've gotten to participate in the inner workings of an international NGO. I've seen which nuances get lost in translation, and which core values need no translation at all. Common interests abound between leaders and students and executives - our meetings have helped them to see this more clearly.

The Cast
A pair of experienced movers and shakers from Middlebury, VT
A Chinese businessman with $ and soul.
An introverted Lithuanian with a knack for community organization
A retired Economist and past UN board member (she very much reminds me of my Grandmother Young)
A powerhouse of frenetic energy trapped inside a small Chinese woman's body (Ecologia's ground-staff in China)
A Chinese Student fresh off of a semester abroad, and eager to remain in China. One who now, as her mother says, considers herself a "citizen" here...
An eager (and appendix-free) student of international social engagement

All but the last three have now moved on to other cities and continents to continue their work. Meanwhile, Liu Yang (Ecologia ground-staff), Kate (newly proclaimed Chinese citizen), and I remain to see what connections can be made between the work of the Rabbit King and China's microfinance culture.

And that's just a taste of it. Other endeavors include: Moving into my second appartment in a foreign city! Figuring out the hotwater heater! Fighting off the cockroaches! Making friends with the fruit women! Hanging the laundry! Hopping a bus and going wherever it takes us! Mmm...life is such an adventure.

2006-06-01T07:13:00.000+08:00

Hot Pot 101

1. Spice! I tried to write a different #1 and it was shot down by every tastebud in my mouth. One can say nothing about Sichuan's prized meal before one discusses spice. It is wonderful, and hot, and world famous. Eye watering? Yes. Heart burning? Sure. Meal-slowing? Only if that means you are slowing down in order to enjoy the tingle a little longer. Our larger pot was spiced with several fistfuls of whole dried peppers, pods, and seeds. Individual bowls housed several tablespoons of fresh diced garlic swimming in oil for one's personal consumption. My mouth did a jig. Kate and I were both surprised by our ability to enjoy/handle the spice - Sichuan is known throughout China as the haven of all things spicy. (people leave with blisters in their mouth) I'm wondering whether they toned down the spice for the foreigners...

2. Big Bowl. "Yes!" I think as I spy this table centerpiece, "Thanks to Senegal, if there is one thing I can do, and do well, it is: navigate a communal bowl." How wrong I am. The bowls I am used to are filled with rice and fish and family members' hands...not hot oil and skewers. Ow. Ok, so this bowl may require a bit more finesse. Heated with a gas flame below the table (careful with those knees!), this large metal bowl bubbles and spits, contributing to the conversation as the...

3. oil hops in and out of the bowl and onto our hands and elbows and shirts, skirts, and faces. (A feat that, again, sent our Chinese staff into hysterics...we must be very funny people.)

4. Vegetables and Meats and Dumplings, oh my! Peppers and runaway mushrooms float on top. Thin wooden skewers plunge cabbage, sweet potato, spinach, and dumplings into the sizzling oils. Gelatenous noodles mingle with long stemmed mushrooms at the bottom of the bowl, and require nimble deep-sea fishing techniques with chopsticks and slotted dippers in order to be reached.

The meal lasts over fourty minutes, with Kate and I on the edge of our seats throughout. Where did all the beef go? How did the mushrooms get tangled with the noodles? The sweet potato fell in! Ah! Oil everywhere! Perhaps hotpot is not always quite so eventful, but as a newcomer to this bowl of hot oil and peppers burning wrists and mouths, I can simply say that this was like fondue as an extreme sport. (and I thought rugby was tough.)

2006-05-31T11:03:00.000+08:00

Shanghai airport. Swimming through a swift current of a uniform sea of black shiny hair - through customs, baggage claim, forms and checks. I wonder, for the dozenth time, whether I'll possibly locate Kate in this massive airport...and what I'll do if I don't. I glance up from my passport and see, to my delight, a familiar head of cascading curls smiling and standing about a head taller than the rest of the crowd. KATE!

A tearful, gleeful reunion commences, parenthesized by Kate's warnings about China's lacking fondness for public displays of affection. No matter - she doesn't seem to care, so I don't either.

To the youth hostel we go, then off to see the well-lit (neon blue and yellow spotlights in every direction!) city-scape of Shanghai with cool green tea and icecream in hand. The city is deserted at 11:30 at night - both of us are surprised by this fact. I am more surprised by how safe I feel. We are stared at, certainly - the only foreigners on the street - but all stares are friendly and all interactions either humorous or harmless, Kate says. A nice change.

No real time to investigate Shanghai, as we board the 40-hour train to Chengdu at 8am the next morning. Instant noodles, Poky (amazing little swizzle stick things covered in chocolate), and other assorted snacks in hand, we enter car #3 and find beds #7 and #8...the top bunkss...in a mini cabin of 6 beds. Kate's massive suitcase garners stares and a few giggles. How will it fit on top? How will we sleep? How, first off, will we possibly climb up to those top bunks without making our cabin mates severely uncomfortable? (why did i wear a SKIRT?!?!)...all is solved eventually...and we spend the next 37 hours catching up on one anothers' lives, making friends with the staff in the dining car, learning numbers and tones (my first Chinese lesson, which sent our new-found staff-friends into hysterics), and watching five of China's provinces flash by.

Rice paddies, mountains, temples, families on bicylces, water buffalo and calf. It all slipped by our train windows to my amazement and delight. We are in a very beautiful country. I can't wait to explore...

Spent last night in the Dragon Town Youth Hostel in Chengdu, (finally off the train! my back says thank you), which is absolutely our best find in China yet. Tucked in a back alley (really, really well-tucked.), this four-story Ting Dynasty building combines antique Chinese furniture with a spunky, english-speaking staff, world travelers, and a screen projecting some action flic I've never seen. Outside, the alley comes to life at night with glowing red lanterns, Chinese beer, tiny bamboo tables and spicy kabobs. Yes!

Today...meeting with our Ecologia cohorts in the Philharmonic Hotel...Kate and I are toying with the idea of trying to ditch the more expensive adult quarters at night in favor of returning to Dragon Town Hostel... we've already made several friends...and besides, in a few days the Swedes will return from their trip to Tibet and we'll most certainly need to get the low-down on that. (Perhaps in preparation for a journey of our own?)

(more to come on what exactly i'm doing in china in later entries. love to home!)

2006-05-27T13:59:00.000+08:00

Vermont -->Colorado -->Senegal-->Morocco-->Colorado-->Vermont-->China...

Wait, China? Yes. The newest twist in this international advocacy adventuring of mine lands me in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. I'll be up to my elbows in Chinese culture, microfinance, community, research, and rabbits. (more details to follow).

In the meantime, I sit in my empty dorm room in Middlebury VT for 53 more minutes. Soon I will jump in station wagon bound for Denny's with a brother and a best friend. Two eggs and coffee, three airports, and 25 hours of air transit time later, I will touch my toes to foreign, Asian, soil.

Here I go...

(welcome to this blog - I'm excited to share this with you!)