Last Email from China

Dear friends,

This will be my last email from China. I left the rural village and
arrived in the large city of Xi An last night. It was a very striking
transition. We got off the train and were caught in a massive flood of
people. There must have been more people on that train than in all of
the village or even the county. I could suddenly understand everyone
around me cuz no one spoke the rural dialect anymore. On our taxi ride
home, we stared at the beautiful people in their fine flowing dresses,
high heels, carrying shopping bags, looking leisurely at manekins in
store windows, comfortably enjoying their mp3 players, audi's, and
their view of themselves in the reflection in the glass. In contrast
to the villagers who were always working on something, carrying
alarming amounts of grain on their backs in hand woven baskets, trying
to feed their children while batting away the flies from their bowls,
the people in the city looks so much more comfortable and unstrained,
carefree and so lacking of wrinkles on their bodies or dirt on their
clothes. We ate at McD's today and had real ice cream for the first
time in months last night. People here looked so happy, so contented.
Their lives are so great. I felt so relieved and felt at home almost
immediately. I didn't realize the amount of strain the lifestyle
placed on me. I'm undoubtedly a city girl and probably always will be.

Since I last wrote, my experience of the village changed a great deal.
It took a while for me to look at the people in the village as anyone
I could be close to. They were warm, admirable, and genuine, but only
creatures that I observed from afar and talked to to figure out how
their lives were. Only toward the end did I learn to love them like
real people. They became a part of my life and I was a part of theirs.

I'll just talk about one of them:
I met a 14 year old boy named Zhang Xin one of the first days I was in
the village. That day he told me that he wanted to be village chief
one day so he could improve the living conditions for his people. He
doesn't really want to be an official because there's so much
corruption, but he was determined to help his village. From that day I
sensed that he was different from the other kids. Most kids just
giggle and stare as we walk by them down the street. Others would
answer our questions with a word or two and ask some questions they've
been curious about, like whether there's cats and dogs in the US. I
don't believe Zhang Xin talked to me out of curiosity and wonder. He
actually knew a great deal about the US and was a great fan of the NBA
and Yao Ming of course. But I think he talked to me because I listened
to his dreams. He wanted to teach me about what China and what his
village was all about. Throughout our conversations, he explained to
me the meanings of countless Chinese sayings and poetry, and told me
so many stories from Chinese history and literature.

One of his stories was about a man and his family who lived on one
side of a tall mountain that few people could cross. He had to cross
the mountain to reach the rest of the village and their relatives. The
man walked a path so much he carved a road into the mountain and as a
result, all people were able to use it from then on and people were
finally able to cross the mountain. He said this story is to teach us
to be persistent and that what we can accomplish could help so many
others. I asked him if he thinks about these stories and if they
influence him. He said of course, especially because there is a need:
the older generation of officials are very corrupt and old fashioned
in their thinking these days.

Before we left, he took us mountain climbing and led us down safely
from an incredibly dangerous slope so we wouldn't fall. At the bottom
of the mountain, he led his friends in building a bridge of rocks so
we could all cross a stream. He gave us many gifts before we left:
bracelets he made himself of red thread, bags of rocks from his rock
collection (he had a story and a name for each rock), a snake he
carved and painted himself from a stick he showed me one day on the
street, and a poem he wrote into my notebook that embedded my Chinese
name into his sentiments for our friendship. His handwriting is
absolutely beautiful. He doesn't make any mistakes and if he does, he
rips up the piece of paper and throws it out. That's the custom here,
he says.

The day before we left the village his mother invited our whole crew
(8 people) for lunch. Their family owns a restaurant we eat at
frequently, but this time, she cooked instead of the chef, and we ate
in their home upstairs instead of the restaurant on the first floor.
That was the first time I felt like I was a real friend. Not just a
foreigner everyone wants to be polite to, not just someone people are
curious about, not just a guest everyone is obligated to serve. This
was completely gratuitous. His mom made 10 dishes as well as
dumplings. It was the best food I've had during my entire stay in the
village. Zhang Xin wasn't eating much and I asked him why. He said he
was too happy that we were there. Him and his two uncles ate with us
while the female members of the household stood outside to eat. That
was the custom here. It's not that great for the women, he said. That
was the first time I heard a man say something disapproving about the
sexism around here. His uncles played the popular drinking game "Tiger
Tiger" with each and everyone of us. The girls drank Fruit Beer, which
was a really low alcohol content drink that's very popular here. The
men drank real beer. We were all experts at Tiger Tiger but despite
that I ingested enough Fruit Beer to turn bright red anyway.

Zhang Xin's clan takes up most of the houses on the street of the
village. He said there are thousands of his relatives in the township
and the weddings and New Years celebrations are enormous. There's a
long poem of characters that was written by his ancestors and each
successive generation has a designated character for their middle
name. His is "He" or "together." He shares this with everyone in his
generation. His father is an electrician and one of his uncles sells
motorcycles. The past few days he got into a fight with his dad while
his dad was drunk and he slept over at his friend's house for a week.
His dad gets drunk quite often like many of the men here. He also
smokes a great deal as all men do here and yells at Zhang Xin when he
tries to convince him to quit. That may be why for his summer project
Zhang Xin is having people sign up for a study on how much money they
spend a year on cigarettes and how that could all be used towards
reforming education in the town. He already made fliers to put up on
the street corner. His mom never graduated from elementary school cuz
her family needed her to work in the fields and help out at home. But
I'm sure she's a very wise woman regardless because her kids are all
so wonderful. Zhang Xin has two sisters. One is studying Chinese
medicine next year and the other is an amazing writer and loves to
sing. There's about 8 kids living in their two story house and 4 or 5
adults. Behind their house is their field where they grow some corn
and other crops.

I've never met a kid quite like Zhang Xin. He seemed years wiser than
the other kids in town, much wiser than I was when I was 14. His
friends respected him a great deal despite them being much older than
he was and much taller and bigger. They listened to him when he spoke.

During our last night in the village, I gave Zhang Xin a letter and
spoke to him. I told him that I would pay for his college education
and that I would help him come to the US for college if he wanted to
come. I had three requests for him and they were to work hard, write
to me and let me know what he's doing, and to not tell anyone else
about this, except maybe his mother. He nodded and said he would. I
could see he felt the real weight of what this meant.

I had to think about this alot before I decided what to do. It was a
big promise but totally do-able for a working person in the US.
College there costs 10,000 Y a year, which is a little over $1,000 US.
But to people in rural China, it's a great deal of money. Most farming
families have no income at all. They grow enough to feed themselves
for the year. Coming to the US is a much much greater challenge than
that. Zhang Xin's family is one of the better off ones. I thought
about all the children I've met including the young 1 year old who
still has yet to have her own name, and how hard they and their
families have to work to keep them in school. One of the school girls
I talked to said about 1 in 10 can make it into college. For them, she
said, college is just a dream. How much we envy all of you! she said.
I thought how much this place needed a scholarship, and how little
money that would be to give for doctors like us in the US. For the
money I've gotten this summer alone, I could have put 2 or 3 kids
through a year of college in China.

When we said goodbye to Zhang Xin, he was pretty quiet and just looked
down. He ran upstairs right after. The health official told us later
that there's a saying here that "men only bleed, they don't cry." His
mother walked us to our bus and she had tears in her eyes. She had
given us a bag of eggs she boiled for us, and a bag of walnuts for the
road. I saw her many times in the restaurant near the beginning of our
stay. Back then, she was just the restaurant owner. Now I see how much
she cares about her son, his friends, and his future. I felt comforted
by her presence. I think it's because she reminded me of my mother.
She says very little, but cares and gives so much. She held me for a
few seconds and I crawled into the bus quickly and saved most of my
tears for the road.

Meeting Zhang Xin and his family changed what the village meant to me.
Before I surely would have left with a piece of the village in my
heart, but now I have left a piece of my heart back there. Now there
is reason enough for me to go back one day.

I will be returning to the states in about a week and a half. I hope
everyone's had a great summer. I can't wait to see pictures. I am now
just a tourist like most visitors to China and I will enjoy the
luxuries of air conditioning, washing machines, and real ice cream
once more. I'll wait anxiously to hear all your stories when we are
reunited.

much love,

Bev