Baci Abroad Blog
Chinese Hospitality in Qingdao
The Tea Houseby j.n.baci
wearing a tamed top bun --dark glasses perched upon her nose,perfect lips painted soft pink --a mother lounges on the creamy couchshe leans over the tea tableand takes her daughter's phone;her mouth breaks into a smileat what the screen revealsmen's soft voices speakover the dark red lacquered table,while the clink of tiny porcelain teacupschime in the Qingdao air"every passing moment is the passing of life;every moment of life is life itself"she reads her bookas she sips the carmelized-amber liquorand lets the pu'er tea languish on her tongue,cradling the cup between her fingertipsbreathing in the scene,gazing out the window;her eyes cannot decipherthe meaning of the characterson the building across the roadbut she appreciates the shadowsthat green leaves caston the fine lines of words unknownwhat a wonder it has been, she thinks,to feel welcomed by her many hosts --the server at a tea house,the waiter at a restaurant,the manager at a hotel --locals who have worked to decipherher gestures and singularMandarin wordsso that they may offer herthe comfort of hospitalityin the form of fine teasand seafood still in the shellgratitude fills the world inside of herthat this unfamiliar placehas opened up spaceto her:the foreigner,the traveler,the seeker
Where I am typing right now, a busy Starbucks back in Shenzhen, is quite a different scene from the tranquil tea house I sat at in Qingdao, another seaside city in China. Today I am yearning for the cooler climate and slower pace of this "smaller city," thus, post-trip nostalgia has already set in.
While I have been residing in China for four years now, I have explored little of my host country as I have chosen to either return to Minnesota or travel abroad for vacations. That which a couple of months ago felt so upsetting -- a forced stay in China for the summer -- has opened up space to explore the culture and expansive space of this country more deeply; while I miss home, I am grateful to feel fully like a Shenzhener and a true resident of China now.
The trip to Qingdao was precipitated on the following: This fall, at a gala that auctions items to raise money for women and girls in China, I bid on and won a night at the Shangri-La in Qingdao. As I picked up my voucher, I giggled because I did not even know where this city (of some 9 million residents) was located, or why one would visit.
I did not yet even really know what I was celebrating in terms of a city. Mostly, at this point, I was celebrating that I am as good as any of the Bacichx at spending money.
With time on my hands this summer, I finally booked the Shangri-La -- originally for three nights -- with Alli and Charles, and we packed our bags and got on the plane, blindly, as none of us took time to look up any information about the city before we arrived. (We had, though, heard from friends here and there that Qingdao is known for its seafood, and having been friends in fitness and food for 7-years, this felt promising to the three of us -- or at least Charles and me. Alli does not like seafood but she is ever the good sport and will find something on the menu.)
After an early morning 3-hour flight, we landed in Qingdao and taxied to the Shangri-La. Upon check-in, I took out my voucher. The woman at the desk looked at me apologetically as she pointed out that the voucher is not good for July or August. Missing this itty bitty detail is mmmm, maybe a little bit on-brand for me. I made sad attempts to barter the point saying, "I understand that most years this is probably high season, but right now not as many people are traveling, so could you make an exception?" Losing a debate? Also on-brand. But, I shrugged my shoulders and we paid the mere $72 a night for each of our rooms, and promptly found our way to lunch.
While it was not our first lunch, our most notable one did include a tableful of seafood -- Qingdao certainly lived up to its reputation.
Once, when I was many, many years younger, and trying to barter with my dad about getting my own room, I "ate" a smoked oyster. I believe I spit most of it out. I suppose this was one time that I finagled a way to get what I wanted, but then he said he would have given me my own room regardless. And by own room, I mean Mom and Dad turned part of the downstairs living space into an open-air bedroom. And I was rather thankful, and then regretful because I missed talking with Linds as we fell asleep.
I digress, and return to the ways I have refined (those, like my oldest niece Natalie may debate my use of the word refined here) my palate over the years. Case in point, the shellfish I consumed on this day in Qingdao:
This clam is so much prettier than that smoked oyster. Photo credit: Alli Denson
Walking into the seafood restaurant hungry (or hangry if you are a Jamie or a Charles and God bless Alli), we struggled for a long minute to figure out what most of the raw seafood on display was and how to order an appropriate amount. After the use of phone translators, speaking English slowly -- as if the owners would then learn our language in a mere moment -- and many gesticulations, we were on the verge of giving up and trying another restaurant. Low blood sugar will hinder one's ability to problem-solve or have patience. But, just at this moment of greatest defeat, a woman who also worked at the restaurant stepped in with enough English to let us know that we could simply order a bamboo steamer full of mixed seafood and try samples of many new shelled sea creatures.
Photo credit: Charles Denson
We ate most of this. We were really full.
How many times have I breathed an incredible sigh of gratitude when I have been saved by someone stepping in to help with more English than I have Chinese even though we are in China? So many times. So, so many times.
We enjoyed the ocean air of the Yellow Sea on our first day.
Alli and me at the pier. Photo credit:
As we continued to venture around the city, we continued to encounter so much goodwill from our short or longer-term hosts, and often at just the right moment.
On our third day in Qingdao, as we were in the process of navigating different modes of transportation and buying tickets to enter the park surrounding Mt. Lao, a woman who worked at the (vastly Chinese) tourist center stepped in to support our cause. In part thanks to her, we were able to enjoy the following day:
Photo credit: Charles Denson
Life lived in translation is often entertaining. I do not post this photo to make fun of the translation at all. I find the translations often endearing, and I am humbled by anyone who can write in both Chinese characters and use a Roman alphabet.
There are several temples along the paths on Laoshan.
This guy was guarding the entrance to one of the temples. As we descended the mountain, we took in this view for a bit.
Photo credit: Charles Denson
The following morning, enjoying the delicious buffet at the Shangri-La, our newfound friend Wallance, one of the managers of hospitality, said that he had comped our breakfast. After Charles went back to the room, Wallance did tell Alli and me that Charles was the reason he, Wallance, was most inspired to take care of the cost. Despite the lovely ladies beside Charles on the trip, he was the one with the most admirers. The compliments that Alli and I received ... well, they were mostly from Charles. We didn't complain; we just kept eating the free food.
Wallance, we love you, fine friend.
And then we kept walking, all around lovely spaces. One of those spaces was the German quarter. Some 100 years ago, Germany had control of Qingdao. At least this is what we were told on the trip at some point; I still have not done my research on the city. Whenever it was that the Germans occupied Qingdao, they influenced the city through architecture. In the German quarter, a Catholic church rises high on the top of a hill and is surrounded by a plaza. People-watching in this square was fabulous.
So, so many brides and grooms every day of the week are being photographed at the plaza surrounding the church.
Take a few moments. Just take in the whole scene. We loved this space.
After three days of exploring together, the Denson's flew home to Shenzhen, and I decided to rebook my flight and stay another night at the Shangri-La.
Just a bit deliciously dizzy on half a glass of red Italian wine from Milano’s, biting into a piece of pan-fried sea bass with coarse black salt, I reflected about how on-brand (I'll tire of this phrase soon) for me to extend my stay in various places. I was supposed to be two years abroad, and it's turned to 7 and counting. I was supposed to go to Thailand for 7 days in February and it turned into 23. I was supposed to stay for 3 nights in Qingdao and it turned into 4.
Evident in all of these extensions is the great privilege that is so much of my life. Also evident, as one of my 11th graders stated at the end of this past school year, is the way that "nothing is certain until it's certain."
And so as my seemingly certain 3-day holiday out of Shenzhen turned to 4 days, I sat at a tea shop and sipped pu'er tea.
I sipped some more, read, listened to the people around me, listened to the soft water running in the little man-made stream in the center of the tea house, and just allowed myself to be.
While in Qingdao, I was reading Lisa See's The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. The story offers some interesting history on pu'er tea, and of course, now I am low-key (read: I drink it every day now) obsessed with it.
As I went to pay for my $47 (that is indeed in US dollars) cup of pu'er tea, a tall Chinese man wearing lounge pants and a t-shirt began to converse with me in as much English as I have Chinese. After he named California and New York after asking where I was from, I tried to explain that I am from a state in the middle of the two. Minn-e-sot-a I repeated several times. Ahhhh he said as he pulled up a photo of Kevin Garnet. I laughed and thought, it's a big-small world, isn't it?
As I was asking about my bill for the cup of tea, the man insisted on paying for my extravagance. He expected nothing in return and simply waved happily as I walked out of the tea house, saying, Welcome to China with a big grin on his face.
And now I'm here, in Shenzhen, thinking about this kind man, and all of the spaces we were welcomed into in Qingdao, and I'm thinking about humanity and goodness and life as I am always The Contemplative.
Plans are always subject to change. Sometimes we change them, sometimes they change on us. Tonight, I am feeling particularly grateful that in the times that whoever's choosing the change of plans has been, the world has continued to offer hospitality to me in many ways.
And the Universe continues to call me to reflect on how I can pay hospitality, in its many forms, forward.
Black Lives Matter
I went to Anoka High School where, I think, in a school of 3,000 9th - 12th graders, there were maybe 10 black students. I also remember there was a group called The All American Boys. I remember believing that this was a bad group, formed on the notion of white supremacy. Beyond this thought, I do not remember engaging in dialogue on the subject of race at this time in my life.
I have a cousin, not by blood, but by heart, who is black. Her name is Analuisa. She lived the school years with my aunt and uncle from the time I was in third grade until I was in college, save for the year Ana was not granted a visa to return from Ecuador, where she had returned to her family for the summer. Still, we did not talk about her blackness or my whiteness. Some time ago, I would have thought this was "a good sign." I would have thought this meant there was no real difference in our experiences based on race that would lead us to bring up such topics.
I can now call this notion, that we could live the same in this world with different skins, ignorance.
After high school, I went to Gustavus Adolphus College. Gustavus was smaller than my high school, and again, filled with white faces. I ran track at Gustavus, and I ran workouts alongside Jerry Washington and Ryan Hoag. These were the only two black peers in my social sphere.
I moved to Denver, Colorado, after I had finished my student teaching at 23 years old. I taught at Aurora Central High School. At this time, for the first time in my life, I was a minority. A minority who still had the majority of the privilege. That year, my students taught me 1000 times more than I taught them. They continue to teach me as I see the paths they pave for themselves through our connection on social media. I still reflect back to moments with my students at Central, those moments when I just couldn't understand why I wasn't being heard. Why I wasn't getting through to them. Why they wouldn't just listen to me.
To be heard. To be seen. To be known. It is what we all desire and seek as humans. But listening, seeing, and knowing is not always what we offer others.
Some years ago I was in a vehicle with someone who was criticizing the Black Lives Matters movement. Who hasn't heard someone else say "All lives matter" at this point? And yes, of course, all lives matter. The movement never arose out of any intent to say black lives matter over white lives or blue lives or any other lives. It arose because black lives are lost, be it the loss of the breath or the loss of freedom as black men are put behind bars at disproportionate rates to any other race in the US, at the hands of structural racism. every. damn. day.
Black lives matter.
When I was living in Ecuador, some 9 years after I taught in Colorado, many years after I was wondering why the heck I couldn't make the difference I wanted to with my students at Aurora Central, I read Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me.
I read and reread:
"But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”
And still, I could not really understand why Coates kept talking about the black body like it was so different from any other body.
And then I brought up the book to one of my best friends, Charles. Charles is black. He did not owe me a conversation to help me understand Coates. It is not his job, or any other non-white person's job, to educate any of the white folks about what it is to live in their non-white bodies. But over cigars, Charles did engage with me. Over the course of that afternoon, I finally began to grasp what Coates said again and again to his son through the words of his book: you must protect your black body because society will not. The families of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Jordan Davis, Atatiana Jefferson, The Charleston Nine, Breona Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery have lost their son, daughter, sister, brother, and friend to the lack of protection that society offers the black body.
Black bodies matter.
When I was in high school, I learned about things like the Underground Railroad, and the Jim Crow Laws, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement. I learned about these people and events through text books written, largely, through a white lens. I did not learn about Malcom X, or the true power of the underground railroad, or The New Jim Crow, or much at all about black inventors and innovators.
Someday, when I have children, I will fill the family library with The Undefeated, Little Leaders, Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story From the Underground Railroad, Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans, What Color is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors, and The Watson's Go to Birmingham -- 1963.
Black history matters.
In the last couple of years, one of my favorite authors has become Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I watch her TedTalk entitled The Danger of a Single Story each year with my students. She opens up the talk by recounting her life as a young writer:
I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. "
The audience chuckles, along with Adichie, at this anecdote. Adichie, though, is using the story to illustrate the significance of seeing yourself represented in the texts and world around you. Adichie has made me reflect and consider which books I have in my classroom, which books I choose to include in my curriculum, and which books I recommend to my students.
At the end of her TedTalk, she concludes:
"Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity."
I think this is an important time to consider the books on our nightstands, on our bookshelves, and in our hands. Are you reading books that represent a multiplicity of perspectives and backgrounds?
As a bookworm, in addition to the books from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ta-Nehisi Coates, I love, savor, delight in, and learn from the works of Roxane Gay, Jesmyn Ward, Nayyirah Waheed, and Trevor Noah.
On my next read list: Me and White Supremacy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and Stamped: Racism, Anti-racism, and You.
Because it is my own job to educate myself on what it is to walk through this world with what is defined as black skin, and what it is to "do the work" to understand my own privilege, I follow many important Instagram accounts: Austin Channing Brown, The Conscious Kid, Shifting the Culture, Rachel Ricketts, thelovelandfoundation, Layla F Saad, Jason Reynolds, and Color of Change, to begin.
Black voices matter.
For the past months, in the midst of this pandemic, around the world we have been wishing to re-establish "normal" life again, wondering when or if that day will ever arrive. In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Roxane Gay writes,
"Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free."
In so many ways, we do not need to re-establish the old normal. We need a new normal. We need a new normal where there is justice for all, without hypocrisy. We need a new normal where white folks are examining their contributions to the current, racist status quo. We need a new normal where we engage in collective healing.
I think one of the most important questions to be asking ourselves right now is " Does the way that I vote, the things that I say, the actions that I take show that I believe that Black Lives Matter?"
On-site School Resumes: A Week in Review
I came to this space tonight to tell you all the things about what it has been like to re-start school in the time of Covid-19, but I have been temporarily distracted by my small-batch, (artisanal ) ketchup. I have been cooking my way through Allison Day's Whole Bowls this year, and this week I decided to try a recipe I was rather skeptical of -- there wasn't even a photo on the page for Brunch Bowls with Chickpea Turnip Hash, Asparagus, Eggs, and Homemade Ketchup.
Turns out, cookbook pages without photos do note denote crappy recipes. Sometimes it's nice to live alone because there is no one to see me licking the last of the ketchup from my bowl tonight. I feel like Grandma and her porkchop bone -- let me set aside all manner of decorum and enjoy the shit out of this.
Before there was a small batch of homemade ketchup this week, there were four days of in-person instruction at Shekou International School for our grades 9, 10, and 11. I noted in my last post that I did not process the news of reopening with open arms -- at first. I was deeply skeptical about bringing students back into classrooms in the face of so many protocols that impede our ability to engage in what we know to be the best pedagogy. The week ended up turning out notably better than I had anticipated, but our new (ab)normal is interesting ...
We used to be greeted by our administrators when we entered the school; now we are greeted by the police force. This felt unsettling on the first day, but the officers were there to protect students from any too-curious passerby who wanted to take photos, or in the case that anyone would want to bar us from a smooth start. All went well as we got settled into the amphitheater on Monday.
We used to huddle close together in this space, and now we sit on our designated seat 1.5 meters apart. This was possible as each grade arrived separately for a 2-hour re-orientation Monday. A number of our students are still out of the country or have decided to continue distance learning from their homes in Shenzhen.
It used to be that when our students entered our classroom we offered them wide smiles. Now we smile with our eyes.
I used to have two classes of Grade 10 English at two different times of the day. Now I have two Grade 10 English classes at the same time. I stand in front of one class, beam myself through video into the classroom next door, and bring students outside of school into the classroom through a Microsoft Teams video. I expected this to be something of a mess; in reality, it worked quite smoothly.
I did miss the side-by-side writing conferences that I used to have. While the students worked on their writing in the classroom and in their homes, I had to maintain our physical distancing protocol, so now I offer feedback in OneNote.
Students used to play foosball and air hockey at lunch; now they talk across long tables, using chopsticks to exchange their pieces of sushi.
We have a wonderful music program led by Mr. Bob Krebs and Ms. Vanessa Coetzee. Students used to play their instruments in music class. Now they work on music theory as most are not allowed to practice their instruments because #masksallday.
At SIS, students used to play musical chairs throughout the day, generally sitting where they want in each class. Now students carry the same chair around to each class all day. This is not a joke. These chairs are disinfected each night by our diligent maintenance staff.
In a video storytelling class that I co-teach with Ms. Sophie Delaporte and Mr. Edward Bruce, we used to go Into the 'kou to gather footage from our community in order to elevate voices often unheard. Now students go into their computers, watching videos created by individuals rather than small groups. We are awfully proud of the stories these students have been telling this semester as they interviewed their own family members to tell the stories of A Day in the Life of Corona from around the world. You can watch some of these expertly crafted videos at our site Into the 'kou to hear more about the experiences of different families.
At the end of the day, when the students have all gone home, our maintenance crew used to tidy up the room. Now they place UV lamps in each room and sanitize each tabletop.
Seniors used to have all the pomp and circumstance in celebration of their hard-earned graduation. Now they are happy to have a photo together. We do not yet know if SIS will be able to hold any kind of ceremony, but I am beaming with pride as I look at these cool kids in this photo. Go to the limits of your longing, seniors. Your longing.
I used to take mindful moments to gaze out of the classroom window at the boats and the palm trees and the South China Sea. And now, I still do.
Life in the Time of Corona continues to be a wild ride for the world. Reflecting on the week from my quiet apartment now, what I feel in my body is contentment that I am here, in Shenzhen, with the opportunity to continue, and then close the year with my students, in person. The feeler of all feels, gratitude for my entire SISrocks community, here and abroad, is filling my chest and my eyes.
We can do hard things. We got this.
School re-opens in the time of Covid-19
I am sitting at my kitchen table tonight, sipping San Pelegrino out of my blush pink cup that says, "Sisterhood is Powerful" on one side, and my nickname "SheWolf," on the other. I am also licking a spoon that I keep dipping into a huge wooden bowl of cupcake batter. The batter, unfortunately, tastes more like baking soda than it does rich chocolate. But I keep scooping into my mouth anyway.
I'm using poor tasting batter and bubbly water to try to assuage my melancholic feelings. I could look worse, I know, but I could also be in Vietnam with five of my best friends, as we had planned months ago. My friends at SIS and I were supposed to fly into Ho Chi Minh city tonight to meet up with Ceci as she now teaches at South Saigon International School. The tickets were purchased, the Airbnb was booked, the out-on-the-town outfits were imagined. And then there stayed Covid-19. The airline canceled the tickets, the owner of the Airbnb messaged regretfully, and we put our Rothy's and skinny jeans back in our closets. And then messaged each other throughout the entire day, working to reach across many miles to still hold one another in a warm space.
Just ... my heart ... as I look at our joy at being together.
Ceci's words on a photo of us on her Instagram today says what I want to say just the way I want to say it: "Tonight in some alternative timeline in the universe, these beauties are soon landing at HCMC airport and starting what will be an unforgettable weekend together. I’m jealous of those versions of us, the ones who will get to physically reconnect, laugh, cry, hold each other so tightly that it might even be felt on our side of the universe. I might not really know whether time bends this way or how, but I know for certain that in this timeline, we will be together again someday and it will be all the sweeter. I love you ladies."
Currently, three of us in this photo are in the Americas, two of us are in Shenzhen, and one of us is in Vietnam. When the borders re-open, three of us will be in Shenzhen, one of us will be in Portugal, one of us will be in South Korea, and one of us will be in Vietnam, as we all embark on another year of international teaching, but with more physical distance between us. We will plan another trip to see one another, but it's so hard not to be able to set a date.
I think, along with the rest of the world, my ability to flow with the uncertain and ambiguous continues to hit turbulent times. Last week, I felt consumed by anger. My anxiety was flowing. The centered spaces I know I am capable of creating were rocking. I walked into my therapy session and told Tracy I just wanted to throw things. She kindly asked if I chose to do so during our time together, that perhaps it could just be a pillow for now.
Part of what had me feeling so unsteady was the notification that we will be resuming (in-person) school on Monday, April 27th.
I want very much to see my students. Zoom classes with them have often been the light in my day, and bringing their brightness back into the classroom is something that we have all been waiting for -- but in our context of international teaching in Shenzhen, school will resemble little of what it did before.
As Covid-19 hit Guangdong province during Chinese New Year, many of us were traveling (though not me) during this holiday. When my colleagues learned that we would proceed after break with distance learning, and they began to process their fears about the virus, understandably many chose to stay outside the country. Many also chose to leave to return back to their passport countries, seeking solace in the places most familiar. Like all of us international wanderlusters, Covid traveled too. All around the world. And China closed its borders to foreigners, so my fellow teachers and friends are unable to return.
At present, we have 40% of our SIS staff in Shenzhen, while about 70% of our student population is present. Staffing is one of many of the challenging factors we are facing.
The SIS community is like a family. When my students came in today to get their testing for Covid-19 so they can be cleared to come to school Monday, some of them automatically came to hug me, and I leaned towards them to embrace them too. This breaks the rules, though, of physical distancing. It is not natural to keep such distance between ourselves and others, especially when those others are our good friends and colleagues and dear students.
My class is discussion based; I generally gather my students in a tight-knit circle on beanbags to discuss the texts that we have read. With the new Covid protocols, our classrooms feel a bit more sterile, which I guess is the point ... but it feels so strange.
Everyone will be required to wear the mandatory masks inside school walls. Except, perhaps, when you're taking a sip of your coffee.
There are signs everywhere around school that we are still living in the time of Covid-19. While Shenzhen has the virus under control, the wispy Covid ghost permeates the air.
This new wastebasket is for throwing away masks halfway through the day as a second mask must be donned after lunch. At lunch, students will not be able to sit facing one another, or near one another.
When staff and students walk into school each day, we will all get a fever check. If anyone has a fever, a room has been designated for isolation. The CDC will then come in to further inspect the individual and tell us what to do next.
It is due to all of these restrictions that I have sat with such a heaviness in the past week.
And then I had several conversations that helped me to slowly shift my perspective. In telling a friend how different the energy was in the building, he said, "Yeah, but you'll bring your awesome energy and the kids will feel that too." His words hit a chord in me; they caused me pause for reflection. The students will feed off of our energy; I have seen this play out countless ways in my classroom, for darker or lighter.
Isom's words also made me think of what I had heard in a recent episode of Brené Brown's podcast Unlocking Us. The episode, entitled "Permission to Feel," welcomed Yale professor Dr. Marc Brackett into a conversation on emotional literacy. In the episode, the two talked about the way we mirror one another's emotions. And so it went that I thought more and more about what this means for the energy and emotions that I bring into my classroom on Monday.
In meeting my students wherever they are at, I plan to be honest. To feel all the feels with them. I would also like to engage them in discussions that, rather than begin with "How are you doing right now," start with "What's something that you miss that surprises you? What's something you don't miss that you thought you would?" as well as "What's giving you hope right now?" and "What do you hope we learn to take away from this experience?" I want us to honor our shadowy emotions, while also giving voice to the strength that continues to exist in our SIS community.
In the midst of this scene, as students were lined up for their Covid-19 throat swab, my student Yijoo, a junior in my Language and Literature class, expressed how excited she was to be returning to school on Monday. While it was clear that school wasn't just how we left it in January, Yijoo was quite unfazed by the new protocols. The smile that I could detect beneath her mask because I saw it in her eyes ... it gave me life today.
It will feel different and awkward and frustrating to have to abide by all of these restrictions for the remainder of the year. And SIS will continue to be a space full of light and energy and caring individuals that walk through the entryway with smiles on our faces, that you'll see by the crinkles at our eyes.
So, I am, I'm really ready for you, kiddos. Let's get our learn on, together again.
Holding Space for Life's Groundlessness
The first time I went, the Chinese to English translation on the women's phone asked, "Are you a hunchback?" Today, after I had gotten myself ready in the same room as before, she spoke into her phone again, and when she showed it to me, I read, "...and then honey let me take a look at one of your breasts." To be clear, I was not at the doctor's office; I was about to get a facial. Life lived in translation can offer moments of levity into an otherwise blue day. After further translations, I realized that while I had asked for an exfoliation of my décolletage, the esthetician thought I was asking for other services.
I still have no idea what she had planned to do with my breast, but I was very happy with my 4.5 hours of skin services today. While a great series of communication was lost in translation during my time at the skin clinic, I am certain that the final translation came through just as it should have. "You're so hip. You look so young," she said as I dressed to leave. This lovely woman who first asked about my hunchback -- I am still curious to know what she was really asking about as I checked in full when I got home and I do not have a hunchback --does know how to spin some words that'll get me to come back in the door and spend my retirement fund on my skin.
I have been free to go to roam the city again -- indulging in not just facials, but pedicures and manicures and good food, too -- for the past 8 days. Quarantine here in Shenzhen was one of the harder things I have had to bare down and endure in some months. The day I was released, I first went for a hike with Katie. I nearly tackled her in an embrace when I first saw her. Humans are just not meant to go without physical touch for days on end. By the last of those 15 days in total, I felt quite energetically depleted; all of the cat cuddles just could not take the place of hugs from friends.
Gin and Tonics at La Maison. So crisp and fresh and sweet to sip with this dear friend.
On this first day of my newfound freedom, my SIS community really showed up to celebrate. Educators know how to happy hour better than any other profession, I would argue.
In Shenzhen, restaurants are open for dining in and families are meandering along the boardwalk in larger numbers. In these ways, parts of life resemble what we used to know as normal.
In other ways, life is heart-breakingly abnormal. As part of an international school community, my close friends and students are spread all over the globe right now. China's borders are still closed to foreigners, and so as I write tonight, a number of my best friends are in North America. Several of these friends will be moving to other countries in June, having signed contracts for the new school year with other great schools in Asia and Europe. Soo it is that our final months that were supposed to be lived with Sunday brunches and toasting friendship on The Strip with bubbly glasses of Prosecco are now spent in Zoom.
In reflecting on the many plans and hopes and expectations that feel laid to waste right now, I am reading and rereading words from Alicia Key's recently published memoir More Myself: A Journey.
Life's groundlessness. I keep rolling these two words over and over in my mind. They elicit both anxiety and awe. The seeker in me knows how to open up to and delight in the unpredictable nature of life; the anxiety in me keeps trying to will the Universe to offer shiftlessness. Inertia, though, is not the natural state of the world, so I am curled up tonight pondering How do I find my stillness in the presence of so many uncertainties? There is no life hack, no 600-word article to read, no easy answer in response to this question. I am conjuring a great deal of patience and grace and breathwork to create, if only fleetingly, moments of acceptance.
Ms. Keys is really getting to my heart and soul tonight, not just with the words from her memoir, but with the lyrics to her songs. When I walked into the house from my facial, I turned on Spotify. The first song to come on was Distance and Time from her 2009 album entitled The Element of Freedom. Keys dedicates the song to "all of the lovers who can't be together, separated by distance and time." Listen, I suppressed a sob as she started singing, "You are always on my mind. All I do is count the days. Where are you now?"
There was only one thing to do in this moment: go into the kitchen, take out candied ginger, chocolate, and almond butter, and mix and match until my heart was distracted by the sweetness now sitting in my stomach.
The heaviest part of the uncertainty of the coming months is connected to so many people that I love. Will I be able to return to the States for part of the summer? Will I be able to travel in Asia? When will I hug and kiss and love up on so many of my favorite people? My mind is rolling on and on with questions about what the future holds.
In the present, a candle flickers to my left. While I am typing in my large blue chair, my gaze falls onto the marble sitting Buddha in front of me. And I think of what my therapist has reminded me of recently as she has said, "Jamie, put your feet on the ground. Feel that you are grounded." When Tracy urges me to do something, I generally heed her advice. I have revisited the action of placing my feet on the floor, closing my eyes, simply being with my breath as I bring awareness to the way my body can feel strong and steady.
I do believe it is true, we can be grounded in ourselves in the midst of life's groundlessness. It is not without suffering. Tonight, it is not without an achy heart. But I am working to feel the roots that I have planted beneath the path so that even when that ground shakes, I believe in my ability to balance.
"What is fear? Non-acceptance of uncertainty. If we accept that uncertainty, it becomes an adventure." ~Rumi
Even when the physical distance between me and many of my loved ones feels tangible tonight, I am grateful that near or far, we are still also rooted in that love for one another. I hope you feel my love today. I am sending it out from Shenzhen to many corners of the world tonight.
XOXO
A Delivery and a Hospital Visit, and the Weekend I Want to Move Beyond
It could have turned out differently. The knock could have been for a different reason. I talked to a friend this weekend who got a knock, too, but her knock, it was less pleasant. She had to write an apology for speaking in the elevator. Talking in elevators is no longer allowed in the time of Covid-19. Her apology is now taped up in that elevator. At least the first part of my weekend story is not one of shaming or blaming or the shadow side of my host country.
On Friday afternoon, I was in the middle of a Zoom call with my seniors when I heard the rapping on my door. Confused, I muted the microphone on my computer and turned my door handle. When the man on the other side offered a smile while holding two large boxes, I shook my head in response. "Oh, no. No, that's not for me," I offered in haste, trying to return to my students. He put his hand out to stop me from shutting the door. "Yes, it's for you. To thank you," he kindly returned. "We want to thank you for your cooperation during this time," he continued in English.
A bit flustered and a bit embarrassed for what might have been a bit rude, I reached out to take the boxes and a large envelope. I smiled back and thanked the man profusely, setting the boxes on the floor and briskly returned to my students.
When I had time to further examine the delivery, I found a box of oranges and a box of apples.
Patacon does have to inspect everything that arrives in a box.
And this letter:
This letter is a keeper. My favorite line is about the "small home" and "big family." I do, I like the spirit of the letter, the sense of solidarity it inspires.
Friday, unfortunately, gave way to an experience which has led my warm feelings to dissipate, or really, to dissolve and give rise to feelings much darker in hue.
I have had a nagging health-related issue for the past week. My symptoms -- swollen glands, a sore body, and some notable tenderness -- have slowly gotten worse over the course of the last few days. Yesterday, I called a woman in HR at school to let her know I would need to see a doctor as soon as possible. I also knew that while I know my issue is unrelated to Covid-19, my context was going to make doctoring difficult. Difficult feels like an understatement now.
My only option was to go to Shekou People's Hospital as I am within my 14-day quarantine. I found this news unfavorable because I was aware enough that this community hospital was unlikely to have doctors who speak English. I pushed for someone to accompany me, to act as a translator and someone who could navigate a system that I knew from others' experiences was complex to a foreigner. At first, I was told to see if I could just call a friend to translate for me. And then I was told to quickly go outside as the ambulance was coming to pick me up.
Well, I can check ambulance ride in China off my bucket list now.
When I got to the hospital, there were a number of hoops to jump through. In the midst of my confusion and frustration and physical discomfort, I did eventually get a call saying that a nurse from my normal clinic would come to meet me. Catherine, a nurse somewhere around my age who spent many years working in Singapore, arrived about 30 minutes later. Without her, I would not have been able to even have made it to step 3 of 17.
After over an hour of waiting, we stepped into the "doctor's office."
These temporary rooms have been set up in the time of Covid-19.
I was not allowed in the regular interior of the hospital, again, because I have not completed the 14-day quarantine yet. The doctor informed us that I would have to take a swab test, blood test and have a CT scan to prove that I was clear of the virus.
Hour 4 at the hospital. Results: I have good lungs.
After spending all afternoon at the hospital, I was then told that while my blood test had already come back negative for the virus, I would still not be able to see an actual doctor until Sunday when all of the results were in.
I went home exhausted and defeated. I did not know that Saturday was simply a warm-up for the Battle of Sunday During the Time of Covid-19.
Catherine messaged me when I was home Saturday night to let me know that she would meet me back at the hospital on Sunday morning. I was so relieved that it would be her rather than someone new.
When I woke up this morning, I was at first told that I would not be able to leave my house yet because the results had not yet been reported. After a bit more time passed, I was then told I could get a taxi and meet Catherine at the entrance to the hospital. She had the results -- negative, of course -- when I arrived.
Catherine and I then got to wait for another hour for a doctor to dress in a hazmat suit and come down from inside the hospital to see me in the temporary space set up outside the hospital. While all of my results were negative for the virus, again, I am still within the 14-day quarantine period, and so I still was not allowed inside the actual hospital.
When the doctor finally arrived, she did not know where she could even see me as there were no beds set up in the rudimentary rooms. She did not have the equipment she needed to examine me. She did not even want to come within a meter of me.
After a make-shift bed was placed inside one of these rooms, I realized that the doctor expected me to disrobe with a large window open to the corridor right outside.
The windows of the room I was placed in opened right up to this space.
I insisted some kind of covering be put on the window. This took real negotiation. Eventually, a thin blue medical paper was put up on the window. By this point, I was shaky and feeling vulnerable and just so tired.
Catherine trying to negotiate with Dr. Hazmat.
The doctor would not touch me with her gloved hands. She used an ultrasound machine to tell me that I had swollen glands, and when I said that I knew that, but that was not my main concern, she simply said she didn't have the right medical tools to investigate further. I tried to show her where I was feeling pain and discomfort. She said she couldn't help further.
I erupted into sobs on that damn bed. Seven exhausting hours had led to a simple, "go home and return after your 14-days are done."
Catherine gently put her hand on me and said that we would get me to see a doctor at my normal clinic as soon as my quarantine period was over. This means I will wait until Thursday to see the doctor that I need.
After another hour of waiting, antibiotics were placed in my hand, and I left the hospital exponentially more upset than the day before.
Defeat, rage, disempowerment.
I am currently sitting in my living room in silence. When I arrived home, I lit incense and just watched the smoke rise while I focused on breathing.
I am reflecting on my anger and frustration. I am thinking about the shadows behind the rugged individualism which is part of the DNA of the American psyche, and I am thinking about the shadows behind the rule of absolutes which is part of Chinese governance. The passport I hold comes from a country where the rights of the individual arguably often trump those of the collective. My host country is the opposite: the collective bars individuals from getting their personal needs met at times. What does this all mean right now? I'm not even entirely sure, but it seems something needs to give in both contexts.
After a lot of deep breaths and some lunch, I have been sitting here looking back at photos I took two weeks ago. I was one happy woman.
Thailand, how I miss you.
I am remembering the words from my favorite poem, the one whose lines adorn my arm: "No feeling is final. Just keep going."
At the end of writing this post, my dear friend Katie and her daughter Lana stopped by to drop off cookies. I went to my balcony to find her below as she was not allowed into the building. She blew kisses. She danced. And I am feeling a little bit better.
I love you, friend.
Community is everything. I just cannot wait for actual physical embraces when these 14 days are done.
Now excuse me while I eat some homemade cookies.
Writing from Day 8 of Quarantine: A Toast to Paradox
After over a week of isolation, I now know something about what an animal in a zoo feels like. Sort of. In the sense that I’ve been taken out of my natural habitat. This is interesting, though, because as an introvert I would have argued my home is certainly my natural habitat. But 8 days into this solitude ... I’m over this shit.
Or at least the nearly absolute solitude of it. Other parts of this experience, like the ways that my community is continuing to reach me, just tickles my heart and soul. Since arriving back home on Friday night, I have been the recipient of a number of beautiful deliveries: a supply of dark chocolate, a bouquet of cat-safe flowers, two lunches of rooftop garden veggies, and ice and limes for my gin and tonics. I am ready to just be able to really give back now, and I know that the coming weeks will offer plenty of opportunities to pay it forward.
It seems that the new regulation now is that anyone returning from a country deemed a danger for importing the virus will have to do the full quarantine in a hotel room. The exception may be those with children. Hearing this news today made me ever-grateful that I returned from Thailand when I did.
I, like you, continue to work to establish a new normal and a new routine. I have let go of the notion that this time of quarantine and working from home is going to be my most productive time ever. I have learned that the mathematical equation that sums up my days is not time+energy=output; rather my days equate to time+space (minus) a-great-deal-of energy=grace to just be.
My days have still started with movement, but not long, high-intensity workouts. I hit my mat for 30-45 minutes of yoga, or a short weight workout. I thank myself for showing up.
My balcony has really become something of a haven. I move here, but I also eat here, sit and watch the world here, write here. Why haven't I been doing this all along?
During the afternoon, I connect with my students via Zoom.
Seniors who have just found out that their IB exams will be canceled.
I also use Zoom for my mid-day breaks; I meet my friends there for good laughs. I do wonder ... I wonder if Zoom and Tik Tok are in cahoots here ... just a conspiracy theory. The Tik Tok videos that come into my chats throughout my day give me so much life. In the midst of chaos, we are finding our creative outlets.
My nights are spent listening to 90s hip hop, laying on my yoga mat on the balcony, trying to get my cats to engage in photo shoots. Now, this is the real stuff of cat lady memoirs. Save me soon, please.
Being quite confined these past days has allowed me to sit in a place of awareness and this awareness has been a sensory experience. As I sit on my balcony in the morning, afternoon, and evening, I feel my senses awaken in deep ways. The sounds of the city, colors of the trees below, and textures of the yoga mat I am seated on all become palpable to me.
Indeed, there are parts of my day that I love. Watching the sun rise higher in the sky as I lay leisurely in bed in the morning and watching the sun set while I eat dinner each evening are new parts of my routine that offer a certain excitement to each day; I love enjoying the simplicity and beauty of these moments.
As in any temporal context, there are other parts of the day that are so tedious, predominantly the way I just feel so dang tired right now, the past weeks of uncertainty and ambiguity seemingly having compounded in my body. So it is that I, paradoxically, feel both exhausted and entirely alive simultaneously.
This evening I was reading from Adreanna Limbach's Tea and Cake with Demons: A Buddhist's Guide to Feeling Worthy. Chapter four begins with Tolstoy's words from Anna Karenina: "All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow." As Limbach recounts the story of the Buddha, she writes, "His origins are also a demon story, as most stories of transformation and triumph are, highlighting how we are made in the perpetual alchemy of falling apart and coming together." These words struck deep into me, for my own experience in the past year and a half; it also feels these words just ring so true for the Collective right now.
As individuals, as families, as communities, we are both falling apart and coming together on the path of novel and scary terrain. I talk to my best friend Jenn to hear about how her clinic does not have enough masks for doctors and patients, feeling like our healthcare system is ripping at the seams, to then hear and see the dozens of people I know who are making masks from fabrics and original patterns. I talk to my family and hear a certain anxiety in their messages when they consider the prospect of weeks of social distancing, to hear about them also opening up to new technology for virtual happy hours. I have felt separated from students who hit a hard place in the face of distance learning, to feel them return after so many of us have reached out with words and video conversations to embrace them in their confusion.
Sitting in an uncertain space with so many of my friends and family really beginning to process a new reality, I consider the power of how we frame that reality. As I was (again) scrolling Instagram today, I came across a post from Dr. Alexandra H Solomon. Rather than call keeping ourselves away from others "social-distancing" she coined it "cocooning." If we all enter our cocoons, we come out more beautiful than before. As with the Buddha, our transformation will happen after living in some dark spaces. After the dusk of each day is the dawn of a new morning.
To darkness, and to light.
Sending all my love,
Jame
Quarantine is moved to the Baci Abode
Last night, at 11 pm, I was curled up in bed in my hotel quarantine, devouring another episode of Outlander on my iPad, eating square after square of a dark chocolate bar. The title of the episode (season 2, episode 6, for other fans out there) that I was viewing is “The Best Laid Schemes.” I feel like this is the theme of 2020 in many ways right now. It reminds me of a line from a Robert Burns’ poem entitled To a Mouse. As Burns plows a field, and runs over the mouse’s nest, he writes, “The best laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry.”
Reflecting on this line, I am thinking most of my friends and family that I have been connecting with back in the States the past couple of days. Grandma and my Aunt Abby canceled their plans for Vegas, another friend and his family canceled the spring break he and his wife had promised the daughter they had recently uprooted, and dozens of you are getting ready to support distance learning while also keeping your careers afloat. It sure does feel that Covid-19 is akin to that plow from the poem.
I continue to occupy new and interesting spaces back in China. At the end of the episode, the phone rang in my room, and I was told that I would be going home, for certain this time. I ran around, throwing my belongings into my suitcase in mish-mash fashion. I flew out the door and down the elevator, delighted at this news. I had planned to be in the hotel another night as I had gotten no news of my test results just yet — and this time, I was happy to have these plans interrupted.
Two official workers whisked me home in this golf cart. It was pretty nice to feel the wind in my hair after a 48-hour stay indoors.
There was a point where a 14-day quarantine inside my own home almost seemed unbearable; now it seems a welcome space compared with the hotel, where I did not have access to a kitchen, my wardrobe or the queens of my castle: the cats.
When I walked back into my home last night, it hardly felt real. I am ridiculously grateful to be in my own apartment now, even if I am forced to stay in isolation for another 12 days.
This morning I allowed myself the space to be slow in rising, slow in my yoga asanas, slow in my kitchen. I read somewhere recently something that went like this: when you go twice as slow, you notice twice as much.
After my easy yoga practice, I sat on my meditation cushion, soaking in the sound bath of a Shenzhen morning. A car horn honked emphatically as traffic whirred 17 floors below me. Birds twittered while a mate cawed loudly in their direction. The sound of materials stacking, or dropping, set a sort of drum beat to my surroundings. A puppy yipped as I opened my eyes to catch a glimpse of a white-winged bird soar into a green tree in front of me. It was lovely to sit in such awareness. Rather than focusing on being confined, right now, I am continuing to find delight in what I have access to: slow living.
I also got back on my whole bowls kick. I am making my way through Alison Day’s cookbook, but today I was short on ingredients, so it was millet, Chinese greens, and hemp seeds for brekky.
Silvie is a big fan of the life of leisure. From time to time, she does go after one of the balls that her Auntie Megan gifted her, but otherwise, she does a lot of this.
After talking with two friends from home this afternoon, I just keep thinking about all of you just beginning to process how you will protect your families from contracting the virus, but perhaps even more, how you will sustain the emotional well-being of yourself and your loved ones. Words that my dear friend Ceci says to me feel appropriate here: “You can do hard things.” And you will.
In the midst of the rapid changes that we are facing each day in regards to the hard and unexpected space that we find ourselves in, I wonder what a slower pace of life will surface in us? I wonder what we will allow ourselves to hold space for in terms of emotions and reactions to a novel experience? I wonder what we will find in ourselves that we did not remember or know existed?
While I am trying to monitor my social media use — mostly unsuccessfully at the moment — I am so enjoying seeing how everyone is working to create new routines, to help their children understand the power of positivity, to reach out to one another. It’s a real shit time in many ways. One of my administrators passed along a clip of a BBC Radio recording. The broadcaster says, “Yes, there is fear. Yes, there is isolation. Yes, there is panic buying. Yes, there is sickness. Yes, there is even death. But they say in Wuhan after so many years of noise, you can hear the birds again ... the sky is no longer thick with fumes but blue and grey and clear ... Today, a young woman I know is busy spreading flyers with her number through the neighborhood so that the elders may have someone to call on ... All over the world people are waking up to a new reality ... to what really matters ...
To love ... there can always be a rebirth of love.”
Tonight, I am imagining that mouse in the field, looking at her plowed over home. I hope that after she acknowledged the devastation that she had not planned for that she gathered up her spouse, and her children, and industriously set off to rebuild her living space — unlikely to look just as it had before, but to be a shelter for her family all the same. And, to be a space for love.