I'm BACK?

America is unique worldwide: it is amazingly diverse in terms of people, landscape, and food, it is wretchedly over airconditioned, it is the height of convinence and accessibility, it boasts an enormity of television programs as well as near constant entertainment in a myriad of forms, and even though most citizens don't realize it, wealth and luxery is the air we breathe. North Carolina is unique amongst states: it is every imaginable shade and texture of green, sweet tea flows like rivers from every restaurant and home, and the local accents are like a massage for the China accustomed ears.

So I'm back.

How do I describe the delight of sinking my teeth into anything with refried beans? To what can I compare the freedom of driving over near deserted roads winding through pastures and forests? Is there anything more liberating than the realization that the clothes in the stores might actually fit you? What about the thrill of options you can read at the grocery store?

But I'm forth.

Somewhere in the midst of the glee of being immersed back into a culture that swallows me up like a wave of jelloesque familiarity there are the inner rumblings of the all too understood and disected storm clouds of foreignness. I fit here but I'm differet. It's easy for me but I'm haunted by idleness. I have lived a life based on the reliability of the spiritual due to the unfaithful material yet find myself in the pulsating deception that the material seems convincingly stable. I have changed through a year long refinement process but to all appearances, nothing here has.

Back... and forth...
Comfort... and discomfort...

Back, and forth.
Backandforth.

In a few short weeks it will be back to China so maybe I'll just soak America, the parts that have been redeemed, in while I can. Is it even possible to overdose on the company of dear friends and burritos?

I'm back and I'm forth.

Korea in a very few pics

The rain in Spain is very plain...

But in Seoul it's torrential.

I had forgotten what real rain was... this place has gotten more rain in an hour than Lhasa does in a year.

Ode to Seoul Rain:
It is
absolutely flooding.
Am I swimming or
walking down the street?
Great sheets of
water.
This city must be located under a
heavenly faucet which someone has just left on all day.
Where is the ark?
Forging
great rivers equipped only with an umbrella.
Rainy day in Seoul.

My first thoughts on rain was gratitude which quickly turned into discomfort, not because my pants were instantly soaked up to the knees but because of the excess. It's just too much water, it's more than what this city needs, it's a waste.

The image that came to mind as I splashed between subways and wandered damply around the Seoul History Muesum was one of an angry child being told that he has to wash the car and instead of doing it methodically and carefully, thus actually cleaning it, in a vain fit of rage just throwing dozens of buckets of water all over it. If the Father wants to wash this city from its whoring to consumerism then this much rain is a show of desperation, isn't it?

Then this damp thought swam to the surface: As the rain which comes down from heaven and does not return to it without watering the earth so My word goes out from My mouth, it will not return to me empty but will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

This rain is not the frivolity of some cranky school child, it is the profusion of a heavenly Father who has opened His arms in grace and pours it out, in the same overwhelming quanities as this rain, over the earth achieving the very purpose for which He sent it.

Who am I to question such excess?

Instead allow me to join in the spiritual water fight with this: You heavens above rain down righteousness, let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up...

My pants will never be dry again.

It is well with my Seoul...

I left Lhasa to about a dozen students giving me kadas, carrying my bags to the car, telling me not to worry... on the drive to the airport I glimpsed a very large lizard scurrying over the rocky mountain side. Goodbye for now Lhasa.

I arrived in Beijing greeted by a dear friend whose eagerness to see me was revealed in this text which I received while I was in baggage claim: just take somebody elses.

I woke in the middle of the night in near agony that I was going to be on the move again in a few humid hours.

A dalliance if you will: It's amazing what Asia will do to you, the way that somehow it makes your brow crinkle and stomach churn at the thought of having to transition. I used to love travel, and even though I've never had a horrendous experience, now the thought nearly drives me insane. In a world that's as unstable as this one is it always strikes me as some sort of masochism to put oneself in a decidedly less stable place, thousands of feet above the air in route to some destination that is sure to be nothing in your realm of experience... I have long asked for there to be more of Him and less of me and my current understanding is that such a request requires me to travel in Asia by myself.

Enough.

I arrived in Korea with a bookbag of clothes and an extra hour, that's how early the plane was. The hour was quickly spent deciding a few things about this culture: 1. They wear flip flops 2. They don't seem to care that I'm white and 3. They are madly efficient with time... in short this is the least Asian country in Asia.

I got off the airport bus with time to spare and walked right into the McDonalds and bought a milkshake for roughly a dollar... I sat down to write about why it is that a well placed McDonalds is suddenly the latest revelation of grace in my life.

I had a random Korean girl (who spoke no English but somehow knew exactly what the phone number in my hand and pleading look on my face meant) help me call my friend, which produced a very joyful reunion. Now I'm writing to you from the fourth Asian country that I've visited in nine months... that's if you only count China as one country.

Whatever my lot (and what an unpredictable lot it's turning out to be) He has taught me to say... it is well, it is well with my Seoul.

Kaleidoscope days...

Ten days and counting...

Still haven't dusted off the suitcases: grades to hand in by Monday: endless stream of text messages: week slowly filling with appointments: clothes spilling out of the machine: chased down the Xianjiang bread man for breakfast for the next few days: dreams of an ice machine and air conditioning: Michael Jackson dead: what do I need to pack again?: the unexplainable meaning of the following exam responses pootbool, grashing my tar, farthing my time: tibetan words replacing english ones followed by shame at my total lack of chinese: visions of a place where anonimity reigns supreme because everyone else is white too, and if they're not they don't care: are they really going to give me a car to the airport?: my worthless students trying to cheat making me wonder why I bother trying to teach: watching time and coming to the conclusion that it doesn't really exist: this message from another student, although you are only ours english teacher one year but in my mind in the one year myself very thanks your student know you have a kind heart to our student however you are good teacher thanks you, in the one year teach a lot of thing to our! this time you go home cannot see but inward miss you also wish you happy everyday: will my body ever maintain a comfortable temperature?: what I have learned this year? what haven't I learned: made a waitress/cook squeal with joy after taking a picture with her: what if home isn't what I remember? isn't what I need it to be?: feel out of shape, need to get back on that bike and bear the heat for a bit: having suffered He is able to understand suffering: my sister traveling to United Arab Emeriates: and what about tomorrow?

These days my mind is a kaleidoscope, only not beautiful colors and patterns in an ever changing and increasingly fascinating array. More like if the kaleidoscope was filled with garbage and specks of light and in the hands of a fussy five year old.

Oh transition. You are what happens when the world goes round, now if only my mind would stop going round with it.

The inexpressibles

Cowbells from the wary herd making their way down the dusty street outside my window sound like windchimes to me. Each erratic note interrupting another to create a melody that testifies to the slow movement of the beasts.

A group of girl students and I crouch around a filthy tea house table in the growing dim of the room sipping sweet tea and talking about what a good husband would be like. They've asked me the question before, and remember every word of my answer: He must love J, he must be tall... but the first is most important.

I announce the final class of the year and hold my breath in anticipation for the chorus of joy... only to be met with silence. The students stare and one girl mutters: it's sad.

I crack the door to the school's English exchange to which I have been invited as a guest speaker only to peer into the faces of my own students, who have to listen to me twice a week for four hours, and who have chosen to use their free time to come listen to me some more.

Around a slightly less disgusting tea house table a student who is not one of mine asks about my family. One of my own students shyly interrupts and says, "I can introduce Ms. Kelly's family to you..." and proceedes to describe to the whole table everything I have ever said in class about my family. She gets every detail correct minus their names.

At the end of class a boy wordlessly approaches and hands me a paper, at my questioning glance he informs me that it is a drawing for me. It is a pencil sketch of obvious time and effort of the Potala Palace with two birds flying overhead, one bearing a banner with my name in English and Tibetan.

In the hallway I am followed by two more students. I slow my stride for them to catch up and they stumble over each other to beseech, "do not forget us".

A girl student dashes from her place in the hot dog stand line to catch up to me and press for some free time. She wants to introduce me to her family and to show me around her house before I leave. I assure her of a time and blink hard in the sunlight as she disappears again into the shade.

Interactions with students making their way through lives of which I am only a speck sound like miracles to me. Each erratic instance interrupting another to create a melody that testifies to the praise of the Creator.

The flight of the cabinet... and tales of home improvement

One day I woke up, blinked a few times, and realized that my apartment was a. filthy and b. cluttered. For a girl whose grandmother carried bottles of liquid cleaner and rubber gloves around in the trunk of her car, this realization was simply unacceptable.

So measures had to be taken. Step one: break a window and duct tape up some screen to provide air flow throught the apartment: SUCCESS. Step two: rearrange and clean the four square feet of space that is your kitchen in order to have room to put food items in there too rather than having all of your m&m's, crackers, and jars of beans exposed to the world. After the tragic loss of a few dishes: SUCCESS. Step three: look at the bare spot where the "pantry" bookshelf used to be in wonder. Step four: Buy a cabinet to fill the void and hide all the random junk which has very overtly been collecting dust in various corners of your home.

Yesterday I just had a feeling about step four. There was something in the air and I knew it was time. So after lunch with one of my Tibetan friends, Droma, we decided to tackle the beast and walked to the used furniture market in Lhasa.

I love this place; it's like a dream for the crazy, near busted, used to be something we can no longer tell what that was enthusiast. I often go to this street just to putter around and imagine where all that stuff came from. The stories that are scratched into the wooden tables, the memories that are stained onto a mattress, the history displayed in the cockeyed chair legs that defy gravity... all these things are just compelling to me. There is no other place in Lhasa where I would buy a cabinet, and probably no other place where I could afford a cabinet.

Knowing vaguely what I wanted, it didn't take Droma and I very long to find the piece of furniture which is now resting in my home. Allow me to describe this item to you: It's big, with a base coat of red, peeling paint. Four doors on which are painted some very obscure variety of flowers, fruit, and something that might be a mushroom cloud. Along the sides are small lime green frames with pink flowers arranged on it and the whole deal shows evidence of someone going to town with some puff paint and a bedazzaler for wood. In short: it looks like a trailer park at Christmas. I love it.

After some brief bargaining with the Uigher lady who's husband owned the shop we get it for a reasonable price of about 40 dollars. She assures us that it's not too big to fit on one of the bike trolleys and goes to fetch a slim little chinese man with a straw hat and a t-shirt tucked into his sweatpants that are pulled up past his waist who will cart it to my home for 2 dollars. He repeatedly assures Droma that he knows where my school is, we agree to walk and meet him there as my school is literally only a 15 minute walk away, like a 7 minute bike ride.

So picture this cabinet tied precariously to the back of a bike trolley being driven by a man less than half the size of the thing in the blazing Lhasa sun. As we walk behind the cabinet Droma says to me "Look at your furniture Kelly!" with an air of satisfaction to which I could only reply... "where is it going?" Picture my cabinet going in the clear opposite direction from the school.

"Oh your furniture!" and we take off in sprints after it, Droma with umbrella flailing, me with bag slapping against my back... we get to the intersection where it turned and Droma lets out a yell that put a stop to the man and our cabinet despite the fact that it was easily more than ten yards down the wrong street. A Tibetan girl and a white girl stand in the intersection motioning towards the correct street. A man with a cabinet motioning the other way. Two girls stomping in the intersection and making a show of anger than can clearly be seen from even that distance. A man with a cabinet turning around to catch up with us.

We put him going in the right direction and resume walking ourselves. Ten minutes later we arrive at the school. Thirty minutes later my cabinet does not. Forty-five minutes later it does not. "Oh furniture lagsha (lost)" we moan. Hot, sweaty, with other things to do than wait for this man to bike less than half a mile down the street Droma decides to continue to wait at the school while I, with another Tibetan friend on the back of my bike, go back to the furniture place to see if he just got lost. We arrive at the same lady's shop and she acts like she's never seen me before. A phone call to Droma who takes a taxi to meet us there changes all that.

As I rest on a used mattress playing games with two small Uigher girls and teaching them to write my name in English, Droma lays into this woman with the full force of angry Chinese: "where is the furniture? Call that man! You don't have his number? You told us to use this man, maybe you are just trying to take our money. How about you give us our money back and when he comes we'll pay you." At that suggesstion the lady calls the man.

She calls the man who, get this, has been sitting at the wrong school gate for now well over an hour. By the time that we have said our goodbyes to the Uigher children and arrived back at my school we find the man and our cabinet parked in the shade reading a paper. Fifteen minutes later it's inside my house.

Total time elapsed for the completion of step four: three and a half hours. Three of those hours was spent on a joy ride for my cabinet.

Life is exciting isn't it? Now year round I can enjoy the flash of a trailer park at Christmas and ruminate on the furtherance of my home improvement plans...