My parents sent me an all-American-childhood care package for my
birthday, complete with mini-Ritz peanut butter sandwich crackers,
peanut m&ms, goldfish crackers, animal cookies, and granola bars. I
did manage to not eat all of it at once, though I must say the animal
cookies and peanut butter easter m&m’s did disappear quite quickly.
The easter m&m’s really made me happy, I had forgotten that it was
getting near easter time there. It’s funny how far away all of that
feels, m&ms and easter and high-fiber granola bars. When in truth, I
could just hop on a plane and be there in like a day. Long distances
don’t mean so much anymore i guess, but actually, maybe they still do,
it’s hard to say. I guess physical distance is only one kind of
distance. Cultural distance can’t be crossed with a 12-hour flight.

My classes this semester really are hard. They feel like real
university classes, with reports and presentations and essays to read
that actually have important and useful content. I’m learning a lot
about China, especially in my newspaper reading class. Each week we
cover one topic. We learn related vocabulary and then read several
newspaper or periodical articles on said topic. So far we have covered
holidays, public transportation, and natural disasters (mudslide,
anybody?). My business Chinese class is also really good, but very
difficult. It’s my most difficult class. At the beginning of the
semester we had another placement test, just for business chinese, and
somehow magically I placed into the higher level of business chinese.
So, of the four levels of Business Chinese that all carry the
description “advanced,” I am in the highest. I have no idea how that
happened, lol. I was extremely surprised when I got the results. I am
the only white person in the class, everyone else is either Korean,
Japanese, or overseas Chinese. It is also the only class where I don’t
understand everything the teacher says. Which, although sometimes
makes me feel a little bewildered, is also a really good thing,
because that means that I have a lot of opportunity to improve my
listening ability. The teacher (a 60-yr old Chinese woman who has
chosen “Amy” as her English name -  ??? ) speaks quickly and uses lots
of difficult vocabulary. The vocabulary we are learning has so far
proven to be the most useful of any of my classes, at least thus far.
Even though at first glance a lot of the words seemed rather
technical, such as “labor cost,” “marginal,” “depreciate,” “crude oil”
etc, I’ve found that these words are actually used everywhere, and
knowing them has already really improved my ability to understand
newspapers, ads, and other things I see around me all the time.

I’ve been feeling a little down the past week, though. I remember last
semester about this time I was feeling the same way, like a snail
climbing Mt. Everest. I’m a very dedicated snail, I climb with all my
gooey might and make progress every day - but really, does it matter?
Because there’s no way a snail can climb to the top, or even get to
base camp. That’s how I’ve been feeling. Last semester I felt more
down than I do now, because now I know that this is only a temporary
sensation. Here in a couple weeks, I’ll wake up one morning, and
everything I’ve been cramming into my head for 2 months will finally
click, and I’ll make one of those lightning-speed jumps in progress.
But - until then - I’m just going to keep on daily bashing my head
against the same damn wall, feeling like a complete retard. Such is
the life of a full-time language student.

~Bethany Allen

In the movie What Women Want, Mel Gibson plays a man who one evening is struck by lightning and wakes up the next morning able to hear what women are thinking. As he walks down the street on his way to work, he picks up snatches up women’s thoughts as they pass by him - “Let’s see, what do I need at the grocery store”… “I swear, if he does that one more time, I’m leaving him” … “Banana, 100 calories. Tuna salad, 270 calories” … and so on. All of a sudden, a window opened to a world he’d never glimpsed before.

Last week, I woke up one morning, a normal morning, early, dark and cold. I swathed myself in layer after layer of warm fleeciness, hopped on my bike, and braced myself for the frigid bike ride to school. But little did I know that this morning, as unremarkable as it seemed, would not be the same as all the mornings before. For during the night, unbeknownst to me, a little fairy had slipped silently into my room, sprinkled fairy dust on my head, waved her magic wand, and whispered a magic spell.

I pedaled around my apartment building, down a little alley, and onto a small lane. I was happily pondering my upcoming breakfast when all of a sudden to my left, I heard someone say clear as day, “I just need to give my friend a call.” Had I been pedaling down an American streeet, this would have been no cause for surprise. But I was definitely on a Chinese street, and the passerby had definitely spoken in Chinese, and I had definitely understood every Beijing-slang-ified word. I decided it was a fluke, and I continued on my way. But not a minute later, I passed a high school age boy and girl, who were talking about a popular Chinese pop star. And then as I whizzed by on my bike, I caught part of a sentence - “… tomorrow afternoon, what do you think?” It happened again and again as I rode to school, ate breakfast in the crowded dining hall, and zipped in and out of groups of Chinese students on their way to class. I could no longer pass it off as coincidence. I had woken up that morning a changed woman - I had been given the gift of TingLi (”listening comprehension”).

It’s not as though I had never understood any Chinese before. I have been able to easily understand my teachers for months now. But classroom Chinese and street Chinese are entirely different animals. It has been maddening for me to go from classroom, where we discuss a variety of complex topics, to the street, where I must ask the sweet potato vendor to repeat the phrase “Big or small?” four times before I understand. In these circumstances, such as when the cashier resorts to holding up fingers to let me know how much something costs, I always want to plead with them, beg of them to believe that my Chinese truly isn’t so pathetic; that not an hour earlier, I had been casually discussing with my teacher society’s attitude towards women during the Qing Dynasty.

It’s been a strange sensation, ever since last week. I’d gotten used to everything around me just being gibberish. But now, I find that there are a myriad small conversations happening around me all the time. It’s like suddenly not being deaf anymore. I don’t think I’m quite used to it yet, I still feel a little embarrassed when I understand the strangers around me, like I’m eavesdropping on their private conversations. But I also feel like I belong here more than I did before. Instead of China happening all around me, little darts of Chinese culture flying beside me and around me and through my, bouncing off and making little ping-ping sounds like pebbles hitting glass but never entering into me - instead of simply being a deaf spectator, I now can participate a little more. The ping-ping of Chinese culture bouncing off of me is being replaced by the tiny whoosh-whoosh of Chinese cultural nibblets entering into my head, swooshing and swirling around inside of me.

-Bethany Allen

Before I came to Beijing, I didn’t spend a lot of time considering some of the deeper meanings of spending my life as an expat living abroad. All I thought about was how much I wanted it, how much fun it would be, how suited I was for overseas living, etc etc. I rarely or never thought about what I would be giving up, or about the difficulties of living so far away.

One of the unexpected blessings about living here the past 3 months is that I have come to discover that I am, in fact, capable of deep love and connection. I have discovered that because, for the first time in a long long time, years and years, I am truly and deeply and daily missing my loved ones. It has been a long long time since I’ve felt this kind of emotion, this intense bittersweet longing. In the past, every once in a while I’d feel a mild pang of “Oh! I wish So-and-So was here.” But lately, I miss people on so many different levels. I guess this partly comes of maturity. I’m realizing, for the first time, what things I am giving up by following this dream of mine. And primarily what I’m giving up are a thousand and one daily moments with the people who give true meaning to my life. My parents, my brothers, my extended family, and Julie, Megan, and Jennifer. They are the sweetness and the connection and the meaning in my life. I feel that more deeply than I have ever felt it. So lately, I’ve been struggling a lot within myself. I’ve always heard, “Follow your dreams, follow your dreams!” But what I’m realizing is that every dream comes at a price.

But on the other hand, I also think to myself, “And to live at home, that also comes with a price — giving up a lifetime of dreams.” And also — what of the new relationships I am forming here? Although right now they are still new, without the depth and groundedness of my older relationships, they too are human connection. They too, in time, and if nurtured, will yield the same bountiful harvest of love and meaningfulness and depth. If I were to stay in America, I would never develop these relationships.

From where I stand, it’s hard to see down the road, and to know what is worthwhile and what is just dust in the wind. I guess that’s life though. You never know until you know.

-Bethany Allen

For so long, China has been my hope, that green yonder to which I cast my eyes in times of despair. “Someday,” I would also say to myself, “someday I will return, and once again feel that fullness, that perfect happiness I felt for the three short months I lived there.” And yet, as time passed, I grew up, and I realized that no matter how much I believed China would make me happy, in reality happiness is only an internal condition that is little affected by one’s place of residence. I’m glad I realized that before I came back here, I think it has saved me a perilous emotional plunge of disappointment and confusion.

I have known for a long while that eventually, the euphoria of living here would diminish, and in time, in time, my emotions would settle to their usual pate. I feel this happening these recent days, and I feel myself dipping into my first low in the cycle of cultural adjustment.

Living in Beijing is everything I imagined and more. Most specifically, I am beautiful and exotic here, even in this international city of cities. That is what I have longed for my entire life. And yet, days pass, day after day, and beauty begins to lose meaning. So am I beautiful. So what? What effect has it upon my existence, my ability to experience and give true love, my ability to connect with my family and friends, my ability to rise above the dailiness of life? None whatsoever. I keep expecting the next wondering look, the next admiring eye, the next pleasing comment to save me, somehow; and yet, it never does. I’m still this person, this same person I have been my whole life. I still have the same faults, the same virtues, the same history, the same talents. I hung so much hope on the beauty I would suddenly gain my coming here. But now, I find all is being slowly stripped away. Not taken away - but that which I used to cling to has lost its weight, and now I am floating, weightless and directionless, in this seemingly meaningless world. I have lost my gravity and now forward movement is not only impossible, but also meaningless.

I wonder who I am, what my talents are, if “helping humanity” can give life meaning, and if so, can it give my life meaning? But this heart, this heart of mine, which once was so soft and giving, has become so paralyzed. Will it remain that way? Or was it just soft on the surface? I don’t think it was ever genuinely philanthropic. I just wanted it to be, wished it to be, believed that it was - but truly, I have always been a selfish creature. But still, I have this desire, even though it feels so false to me. I want to help the world. I don’t want to just live a small life, doing only the normal life things, loving only my family and close friends. But I only want to want to, I don’t actually want to, and moreover I have no clue how I want to help.

That’s not true. I do know. I want to contribute to world peace, somehow. But I feel more and more incompetent, and incapable of becoming competent. Living in this foreign culture, where simple daily tasks are far far beyond my ability, does little to encourage me in my self-confidence.

But today, I heard this small voice. “You have this dream. It is a real dream. It is worth following, and you are worth following it.” Someday, my heart will be open, it will be soft and caring, I will re-learn, or learn for the first time, to think of others, to view myself as part of the whole, and to lay aside fear.

I have a new beginning, and all choices are open to me. I am engulfed in fear, and that is my one and only obstacle. All others are imagined.

-Bethany Allen

I joked a few weeks ago about writing a blog with this title, but now I’m really doing it. Ha, isn’t life always like that. As soon as you think you won’t do something, the next moment, what do you know, you’re doing it.

I bought a cute little blue bike back a couple months ago, since for the first time in my life, I need a bike for daily transportation. I ride it every day to university, 20 minutes there and 20 minutes back. I also whiz around to buy groceries, meet friends at coffee shops, and go shopping. When the weather is beautiful, and Beijing in autumn cannot be described any other way (except maybe cold, windy, and dry), I feel like I’m floating on clouds, pedaling happily along, watching snippets of Chinese life pass me by while golden leaves swirl around me and my trusty bike.
I can’t help but hum these lyrics (shout out to all the Germans):

Oh wie liebe ich mein Fahrrad
Warum das weiss ich nicht genau
Meinem Fahrrad werd’ ich treu sein
Im Gegensatz zu meiner Frau
Niemals werd’ ich es verlassen
Niemals werd’ ich von ihm geh’n
Denn wir fliegen wie auf Wolken
Weil wir uns so gut versteh’n…

(abridged translation: I’m in love with my bicycle, and my bicycle loves me too)

So where, one might ask, does the “life-threatening” part come in to play? One need only traverse the streets of Beijing for a day (or an hour) to know the answer. Beijing traffic is MESSY! That’s the translation of the Chinese word often used to describe the traffic here. You’ve got pedestrians overpopulating out of the high-rises and onto the streets; taxis, legit and unregistered alike, exercising poetic license with the traffic regulations; buses, vans, and cars frantically fending for survival; and all of the above swimming in a ceaseless sea of fearless bicyclists.

And in this frothing sea of disarray doth I daily swim. Is it any wonder that today, both my bike and I are a little the worse for wear?

I was pedaling home from a tea house this evening, contentedly contemplating my forthcoming repast, when without warning, I heard a sudden crunch of metal and found myself hurtling along on a one-way train to Black Asphalt Junction. After I hit the ground, and as I was simultaneously disentangling myself from my bike and trying to avoid being run over by an oncoming taxi (as I had managed to land most inconveniently in its direct path), I realized what had happened — the driver’s side door of a parallel-parked car had opened suddenly, just as I was riding by, and BAM!! the rest is history. As I was painfully dragging my wounded bicycle to safety, the driver suddenly appeared before me, shouting something. At first I thought she was angry with me for not paying attention and running into her car door. But my thoughts cleared, my Chinese faculties returned, and I soon understood that she was apologizing profusely and offering to take me to a hospital. I told her, no, no need, I’m fine, really, I know you didn’t do that on purpose, I’m fine. After checking to see if I still had two legs, two knees, and two feet; inquiring after the health of the car door; and trying to convince Profusely Apologetic Driver Lady that a little blood was no cause for alarm, I hopped on my bike and rode off - only to discover that my bike was also in a sad state of affairs. I did manage to make it home alright, and I am happy to report that both Bike and I are making a swift recovery. I’m going to have several nasty bruises (which I plan on proudly displaying as signs of my traffic martyrdom), and I’ll need to make another Band-aid pilgrimage. But other than that, no harm done.

This is actually the second time I’ve had a minor bike accident, and my bike has needed to go see the bike doctor on multiple occasions. But I feel quite optimistic about the whole thing, and besides, me and Bike are becoming excellent friends, having gone through so much together. I look forward to another day of braving Beijing traffic.

-Bethany

(P.S. To the motherly/fatherly types among my audience, i beseech thee not to worry about me. Despite appearances, biking in Beijing is actually quite safe, as there are bike lanes just about everywhere. Small bump-ins like the one above are somewhat common, but major accidents quite rare. So begrudge me a bruise or two and don’t lose any sleep ^_^)

This semester I opted for the “Intenstive Option,” which involves 10 hours of one-on-one tutoring every week. After the first week or two of classes (20 hrs/wk) and tutoring (10 hrs/week), I came up with a really good way to describe the Intensive Option — intense! An extra two hours every day of Chinese practice has been great for my spoken Chinese, but on top of classes and homework, it really makes weekdays almost 忙死了 — busy to death! In the first few weeks, it was possible, but now that my number of Chinese friends here has increased exponentially, I find that 1) I have almost unlimited (and free!) opportunities to practice Chinese and get help with homework, 2) I often have to give up fun Chinese-friendly activities in order to meet my tutor at our scheduled time, and 3) necessary on-my-own study time (such as for memorizing characters, which for me is best accomplished alone) is reduced. So for these reasons I have decided to opt out of the Intensive Option for next semester.

That being said, I arrive at the real purpose of this blog - to talk about how incredibly grateful I am for my tutor Sunny! We’re like a match made in heaven. We have so much fun together. During the week we usually eat dinner together at her school’s cafeteria (cheap AND delicious, at least in my opinion! And definitely much healthier than eating instant noodles every night, which is probably what I would otherwise be doing), then run a few errands together, and then go to my apartment to study and chat. In all, I’d say we usually only spend a quarter of our time together formally studying Chinese (which is possibly why I’m having a hard time balancing homework and real life, he he). In the beginning, I felt a little guilty about this, since I’m paying for a private tutor. But I evaluated the situation, and decided that me and Sunny’s modus operandi allows me to learn what can’t be learned from a textbook or audio tapes — culture. Like, genuine, deep down culture. For example, by spending so much casual time together, Sunny and I have really gotten to know each other’s lives quite well. We know each other’s daily habits, where we like to shop, how we usually treat shop clerks, how to tell when the other one is tired/angry/happy/embarrassed/worried/confused/content/whatever, what our plans for the future are, and what kinds of jokes we enjoy. Sunny and I have shopped for clothes together, eaten at restaurants, hung out at coffee shops, bought eyeglasses, gone on walks (when it wasn’t yet ridiculously cold outside!), and dressed up for Halloween together. Next week we plan on going to an amusement park together with her younger sister, weather allowing. When Sunny and I walk together, we link arms or hold hands, a habit between friends that I really wish we had in the US.

And of course, we always speak Chinese. She is patient with me and very helpful. We talk about everything under the sun, from boy trouble to the Olympics to cultural differences between the East and the West. She is currently getting her masters in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, and thus has the opportunity, if she chooses, to go abroad. We discussed the character traits a person needs to succeed in another culture, to make close friends and prevent cynicism and isolationism from creeping in to one’s attitude. I didn’t think it was possible for me to already be having these kinds of conversations in Chinese, but somehow with her it is possible.

I’ll miss her seeing her every day next semester, but I’m sure we’ll still see each other, watch movies together, go shopping, and laugh when I mistakenly say her feet are really cute dumplings. I heart my Chinese tutor!

-Bethany Allen

The books we use in our Chinese classes are pretty good, I think. The textbook for written Chinese (Hanyu) is fabulous, though I have a soft spot for everything Hanyu, since it’s my favorite class. Although the English translations in the oral Chinese (Kouyu) book are usually a little amusing, the dialogues are interesting, useful, and full of new vocabulary and grammatical structures. Often the dialogues and short essays contain useful, though usually unintentional, cultural cues. For example, the following is an abridged translation of Chapter 5’s dialogue:

Boy: Mom, Dad, guess what?!? I got almost perfect scores on my math, Chinese, and English tests this week! I’m ranked first in the class now.

Dad: That’s great, Son! I tell you what - since you’ve done so well, your Mom and I want to give you some extra spending money.

Boy: Actually, Dad, could I ask for something else? Not money.

Dad: Sure, ask away.

Boy: I just want you to promise me something. If I continue to do well in school, I don’t want you to beat me again, ok?

Dad: Oh, but Son, you don’t understand. If I hadn’t been so strict on you before, you wouldn’t be who you are today. And how could you get such good grades?

Boy: But Li Ming’s dad never beats him, and he gets great grades!

Mom: I also think that beating isn’t the best way. Son, Dad is just afraid you won’t grow up right. Ok - so can you continue to study well later on, just the same as today?

Boy: Oh, I know I can!

Dad: Ok Son, I promise, from now on I won’t beat you.

Boy: Mom, did you hear that? Dad isn’t going to beat me anymore!!

The greatest thing about Chapter 5 is that the evening before we were supposed to begin the chapter, our teacher received a phone call from The Powers That Be informing her that Chapter 5 was not to be studied, because it was a little bit strange and also contained too many difficult words, and we should skip directly to Chapter 6. But, being the curious and rebellious foreigners that we are, of course we stuck our noses right in Chapter 5 and demanded that we study it anyway. Because really, it’s priceless. I mean, c’mon - “Mom, did you hear that? Dad isn’t going to beat me anymore!!” I just about died laughing during class. I felt a little bad for our Kouyu teacher, she’s a tiny Chinese girl just a year older than me, and I think she felt a little offended that a roomful of foreigners were heeing and hawing all over the floor at the absurdity of the text. But what’s so funny about the text, and why I think the Powers That Be were trying to save face by preventing us from reading it, is that it isn’t meant to be absurd at all. The Chapter 5 dialogue is nestled right in with other perfectly ordinary dialogues about boyfriends, traffic lights, and soccer games. Included in the Chapter 5 vocabulary, alongside “to praise” and “mathematics,” is the phrase “to beat somebody,” as though it’s perfectly normal.

I feel that the laughable Chapter 5 dialogue is an excellent analogy for China’s current situation as a whole. They have made huge strides towards modernization and industrialization, and they seek everyday to prove to the world what a forward-looking, advanced, and postmodern country they are. But so frequently, little mistakes like this one (or bigger ones, like their reaction to the protests in T*b*t) reveal that the adolescent China has yet to grow into the adult attire they have already donned.

**Caveat** I feel self-conscious about saying this, because I truly love and admire China, and I realize that many of its more conspicuous mistakes are a natural result of not having completed the processes of industrialization, modernization, and westernization (can westernization be completed? Would anyone really want that for China anyway? But that’s another topic for another time).

-Bethany Allen

I’m not sure what to write about. Writing travelogue-style is easy, entertaining, effortless. I can write a thousand columns with cute titles like

“As Easy/Life-Threatening as Riding a Bike”
“101 Reasons Not to Buy Food from Street Vendors (and Why You Should Do It Anyway)”
“You Know You’re in China When…”
“My Boyfriend is a Space Heater”
“Superman is a Cross-dresser (and Other Frightening Halloween Tales from China)”

I could be a one-woman cutesy-travelogue factory, cranking ‘em out fast enough to oversupply India.
But - I don’t really want to. Those kinds of feather-light surface-material funny-haha blogs seem so meaningless to me lately. Not meaningless, really. I’m searching for the right word, but cranking the rusty English cogs is getting harder and harder. It’s like this (shi zhei yang de!): Those witty pithy snippets of daily life in China are authentic cultural experiences, yes; the average short-term traverser of Chinese cities can relate to them, yes; but I’m not the average short-term traverser. I live in China. I moved here. I’ve abandoned my snorkel, donned scuba gear, and made my home on the bottom of the ocean, right beside the coral, sea cucumbers, and stinky toufu (wait, how did that get down here…).

I want to write about the deeper things, not just how Chinese people hock loogies (I have no idea how to spell that) every 2 seconds, or enjoy gnawing on chicken feet, or clean toilets while wearing high heels. I want to write about what it means to be a life-long friend here in China, and how different that is from the Western idea of best-friendship. I want to write about how Chinese grandfathers dote on their tiny pig-tailed granddaughters, and how a young Chinese woman deals with the death of her mother. I want to write about post-modernism among China’s youth, and the movements that might become post-post-modernism (I’m hoping some wordsmith more talented than I comes up with a better name for it).

So who’s stopping me? There’s obviously only one answer to that - my greatest enemy, and really the only enemy I have. Me. Wo. Moi. Mich. Ngo.

-Bethany Allen

Dear Hello Potty,

Last week I traveled with my Filipino roommate Fely to Inner Mongolia. Last week was China’s National Week, during which the whole country has a week vacation to celebrate the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China. Probably half of the 3 days was spent on the bus, driving down alternatively smooth, bumpy, or nearly nonexistent roads. This was my very first guided tour, you know, the kind where you all travel together on a bus, and no one knows each other, and everyone has cameras hanging around their necks, and there are quick fifteen-minute potty stops and the tour guide harriedly yells “Fifteen minutes!! Only fifteen minutes!!” (Only in this case it was “Shiwu fenzhong! Nimen zhiyou shiwu fenzhong!!” Same difference).

And on one of these famed fast-forward potty stops, I met you, my dear Hello Potty! I walked into the restroom, and there you were! Five lovely squatty potties, with no stalls, no doors, no dividers. A Hello Potty! You squat down to do your business, and then turn to the squatter next to you and say “Hello!” So i just pretended that this was a normal everyday occurrence, nothing out of the ordinary, except perhaps a little breezier than usual…. Really, dear Hello Potty, you’re not that bad!

The first night, we slept in yurts, those round Mongolian tenty things, and just about froze our pattooties off. We ate extremely fresh lamb (maaa-maaa-dont eat me-maaa) and rode horses for several hours, which chafed our pattooties off. Poor pattooties. Anyway, we enjoyed some horse milk candy and milk wine, both Mongolian specialties. Then we drove several hours into the desert, where we rode camels and enjoyed insulated walls and drowned in sand (I think there is still some in my ears). The return trip was ten hours back to Beijing, which suddenly appeared to me the cleanest, best-smelling, most civilized city I had ever seen in my life. Beijing Beijing, I love Beijing!

So, that’s my trip to Inner Mongolia in a nutshell. Til we meet again, Hello Potty!

Bethany

Sunday, September 20, 2008

I’ve never read the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The first time I heard the title, when I was in high school, I couldn’t even comprehend the topic. My father sometimes speaks of feeling like he could just drift away, float away, from this life. Not that he’s unhappy at all. I listened when he spoke, but just now, just this past week, I think I understand. I feel that lightness, that sense of floating. I’m not high, not euphoric, not overdosing on benadryl - to explain, I’ll have to start with my dreams.

Most of my life, I’ve felt a longing for a place that I am not. It started when I was 5, and i lived in Vienna, and I dreamt of my home in Texas and woke up crying. My family did return to Texas, but part of me never left Vienna. There were memories, buried deep, spoken in a language I only knew for a short time then lost, these memories and feelings that had become intranslatable.

Later came a time when I lost almost everything, and almost lost everything. And I spent years, seven I think, longing to regain those things, which in my mind had taken the shape of Abilene Christian University. If I could just return there… if I could just return there…

And then I did. For some time, the longing was gone. Then I studied abroad in China, and after returning to ACU, I felt that familiar longing, but multiplied tenfold, so intense I could barely speak for months.

Maybe these longings, these dreams of return and reconciliation, have been gifts. I didn’t know it at the beginning, but my dream to return to China kept me alive and breathing for the hardest two years of my life. There were moments, snapshots in my mind I see so clearly, where I held a choice in my hand - die, or live. And there were only two coins in the Life hand, my love for my parents and my desire to return to China. In the almost four years from when I left China to when I finally returned, my dream and longing was my most vivid reality.

And yet, even before I came to Beijing, I suspected that my life here would be different from anything I had ever known. Not in terms of food, or language, or culture, or accommodation, but in terms of my internal reality, my inner landscape, which I began to suspect would be entirely uncharted territory. Because, for the first time in my adult life, I have nothing to long for. The year before Beijing I dedicated to myself, to finally finally stop running from the pain. A year to sit, and feel, and hurt, and cry, and breathe, and finally, finally, to heal. And then, I came to Beijing, fulfilling a dream that has been more real to me than life.

So here I am, this person who is present exactly where she is. Not longing for the Lost Golden Age, not an exile pining for her homeland, not a lover separated by long distances from lover. And the feeling that I cannot shake, the feeling that I am swimming in, maybe drowning in, is just… “at a loss.” I’m at a loss. For words? For purpose? For meaning, or direction, or groundedness? I don’t know. I’m not unhappy. Not depressed. Not elated. Not hopeful, not despairing. Just… floating. The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I am no longer tied to - anything, I guess. I have no heavy weight holding me to the earth. No hopes, no dreams. Not that I don’t dream. I want to have a family, a career, I want to give meaning to life. But that’s just it. What has meaning? Fulfilling dreams? No. That results in a kind of lightness, that most people cannot bear, so they replace those old dreams with new ones. Is that the meaning of life? To wear dreams like clothes, a lifetime of buying, using, wearing out, replacing, over and over and over again, so that in fast forward each person’s life is just a succession of colors and styles flying by, appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye?

In C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, visitors from hell take a tour bus to heaven. They are even free to stay, if they wish. Most don’t really like it there, and return to the bus. One man, the entrepreneurial type, tries to take a few apples, a few Pieces of Heaven, back with him to sell in hell. But he can’t lift the apples, can’t even budge them. In fact, the visitors can’t even walk on the grass, because the blades are like steel knives. The tour guide explains to the sightseers (or really to the reader, since the sightseers aren’t of a mind to listen) that hell, a seemingly vast and endless and empty expanse, is really just right down there, in that tiny crevice in the soil, the size of a grain of sand. The long journey to heaven was really just the tour bus growing and growing in size. The visitors to heaven are almost without matter at all, almost nonexistent, so of course they could not move anything with real mass, like an apple or a blade of grass.

So maybe, I feel that way. I weigh nothing. I float around this world but can make no impression, for I am as good as matterless. And who, or what, really has matter? What really exists? I have no idea.

-Bethany