Looking Back, Looking Forward

I am standing at the half-way point. Five months down, five more to go (not including the 15 days in January). Oh, yes, I've been keeping track, but then again, that is just the type of person I am (planner/organizer/time conscious).

People sometimes ask me if I'm having fun in China. I usually answer that my idea of "fun" is good food, good wine, and good conversation, all of which are difficult to find here (the food is not bad but all of the food has the same basic ingredients so after five months...). That being said, I don't hate it. I enjoy teaching my students and they enjoy my classes and I always value new experiences. The perspective I am gaining by living in China is life-altering. I believe more people should live in a different country and experience how other people live.

Before coming here, I tried not to create too much of an image of what living in China would be like. The biggest surprises for me come from the isolation. Taian is not a small town in numbers but it is a small town in resources. This fact has been driven home since I adopted Tuza. According to all of the resources I've checked, hay is a vital element in a rabbit's diet. I have searched high and low for hay here and can't find any. I even checked in Anshan, which has been a God-send when I've needed something. Things became even more desperate when Tuza started becoming ill four or five days ago. I'm not sure what the source of his illness was but he was drooling and not eating. I took him to an animal hospital (an eight-foot by sixteen-foot room that was cluttered, filthy, and stank of urine) but I was not confident in the vet's ability to help Tuza since rabbits are rarely, if ever, kept as pets here. She was, however, an extremely nice person who is helping my rabbit for free. All I had to do was take a few pictures. It has been difficult with the communication barrier but I've been taking him in to see her twice a day for some injections and for the past two days she has given me a medication that I mix with water and hand-feed him with a needle-less syringe every half-hour. It has been extremely hard on me. I've not had him long but I'm very attached to him. I have never been so frustrated with being here than I feel now since I know in the States I would have the resources to help him...or at least have him put to sleep so he would not have to suffer.

The situation with Tuza brings the second hardest thing about being in China into sharp relief: loneliness. I've never been a social butterfly and I often sought solitude in the past but this has been a rather extreme exercise in self-reliance. Being surrounded by people with no one to talk to is like being adrift on the ocean with nothing to drink. All in all, I think I've held up exceptionally well in this circumstance. At least I'm not talking to a volleyball named Wilson yet.

There are still many things I feel like I have yet to do here in China. Many of them center around traveling but that is not as easy as it sounds. People in China (or at least around here) rarely travel. When I was investigating how much it would cost me to get to Beijing and the best way to go (train or bus) I asked four or five of my classes and only one student in all of these classes (each with 60 or more students) had been to China's capital city and that was when she was six or so!

Although I am still learning new words, I've pretty much given up on the hopes of becoming fluent (or even proficient) in Mandarin. I don't feel too bad about it though. Oskar, a teacher in Anshan from London, just married one of the Chinese-English teachers and said he is all set to stay in China. He has been here for a couple years and his Chinese is still poor (his wife's English is excellent--she lived in Ireland for a few years).

At any rate, I think the next five months will be easier since I have learned how to negotiate my way through Chinese culture, geography, politics, social interactions, and so forth. Thanks to all of you who are following me on this journey and sharing your encouragement. It really means a lot to me and it helps enormously!