China: A Few Thoughts for Starters

I like China, but... spitting inside classrooms, kids coughing on kids, forced photos, gawking, line-cutting, people oblivious to people, and the constant melodrama of expectations stated and with disappointed returns. These are things I do not like. I like my students and my friends, here. They see us, at least many of them do.  I like our apartment and our campus. I like certain types of food, here, and their vast array of different types of mixes, sauces, which span the spectrum of bland to very spicy, from acquired tastes to simple and delicate. I like riding our scooter in every season and type of weather without all the paperwork and permissions required in the West, even in small towns. I like learning different conceptions of how to navigate life, different cultural norms that beget constancy expressed in ideas that contravene accepted western disciplines. Granted, I am very grateful for those, too. In short, China has a different palette, with a spread of colors all their own, and insistence on representations that at first glance seems hokey and half-assed, looking altogether different from our constructs.  Were we, my family and I, not insistent on grounding our experience in certain familial and religious valuations, we might have a different take away, but we are here... and different because we are here... and different because of the grounding we have as westerners who are experiencing this contrast through that lens. I like this journey and trust we are better for trusting God, here and there.