Travel, Relationships, and The New Twenty

After two months of life-swallowing work with a local Congressional campaign this fall, my wrap-up post on our year abroad is long, long overdue. In fact, the concept of “wrapping up” this kind of year is fairly ridiculous to begin with, since if you could wrap it up, you probably wouldn’t have gotten up off the couch to do it in the first place. Nevertheless, and despite my extended blogging hiatus, I do have some closing thoughts I’ve been wanting to share about Guatemala, China, and what it might mean to have spent a year in strange and distant places.

Guatemala

In a year-old comment on this blog, my Uncle Rob referred to Guatemala as a “desperate and beautiful” place. I extolled Guatemala’s beauty both early and often, but that post, “Hungry” (along with several later posts) was written in part to characterize the desperate circumstances of so many of Guatemala’s people. Still, it is Rob’s combination of these two words that has remained with me. Only when used together can the words “desperate and beautiful” approach an understanding — especially a wrapped-up one — of the country of Guatemala.

Maybe it’s the way those words apply to each other. Guatemala’s beauty is desperate: its most dramatic and gorgeous mountains are unpredictable, havoc-wreaking volcanoes; its stunning historical monuments mark one society that self-destructed in famine and violence, and another that arrived bent on destruction.  Its mountains are routinely stripped for concrete, its jungles burned and its monuments looted for treasure. Its people, wrapped in colors that outdo nature, have witnessed horror after horror.

So how could Guatemala’s desperation possibly be beautiful? Not because it’s sentimental; there is nothing at all sentimental about poverty witnessed up close. But being close to people who are in such desperate circumstances does make it impossible not to feel involved. Traveling from the United States, an unthinkably privileged country deeply implicated in the problems of today’s Guatemala, to the crumbling concrete “classrooms” of La Cuchilla and Candalaria, to the sheet metal houses of their families, was a journey of such immense and wrenching distance that I could not help but feel personally implicated in it. There was no beauty in the poverty we witnessed, but there was something stark and powerful in the opportunity to be a witness to it. Because once you are a witness, you take on a responsibility that has something of beauty in it, a responsibility that forces you to acknowledge the qualities you share just as much with people who regularly get sick and die from drinking polluted water as you do with those who you work with or see on television.  The beauty is in the acknowledgement of your part in the world. And only in that acknowledgment is the possibility of change.

Lacey and I will be returning to Guatemala for a week in March 2009, visiting old friends, students, families, classrooms and volcanoes. We’re planning to take as many school supplies as we can fit in our bags, and we’re also hoping to raise money once more for Manos de Colores and its programs to educate young students who would otherwise be working to try to support their families. If you would consider giving again (or for the first time) to Manos de Colores, please send me an e-mail or leave a comment on this post and I’ll get in touch with more details. For more information you may also want to refer to the El Nahual / Manos de Colores web site.

China

China is huge. This is true in so many concrete, measurable ways, but it is true conceptually as well. China’s physical dimensions and variety, its population, its changing urban and rural landscapes, its history ancient and modern, its culinary traditions and its recent rate of economic growth are not only staggering, but also all deeply, deeply layered. In some ways the subject of China is the most giant thing about it. So to “wrap” today’s China might take more paper (or silicon chips?) than could even be manufactured there.

Still, it is precisely China’s complexity that provides some clues as to the nature of this place in transition. For me, the quintessential example was the enormous controversy over the riots in Tibet, and the ensuing response in China and around the world. Lacey and I followed this story from within China in both the New York Times, still available to us online, and the China Daily, China’s English-language newspaper. We also listened to Chinese students and friends who watched the events unfold with unprecedented intensity. The initial picture we got, from just these three sources, was already quite complex:

1) According to The New York Times and other Western news sources, monks’ protests over decades of religious and cultural repression became a more widespread outcry in Tibet and neighboring provinces, ultimately leading to rioting in the streets of Lhasa and a crackdown by the Chinese government.

2) According to the China Daily, the “Dalai clique” had finally begun what it had been planning all along: a violent separatist movement designed to break apart the Chinese motherland. Tibetan seperatists had killed dozens of Chinese people in the streets in a coordinated attempt to advance this movement.

3) Finally, our friends and students, rapt in front of newspapers and grainy online video of the rioting, were more concerned with how Tibetans, who had been lifted out of poverty by China, could possibly act in this way toward the Chinese government and people. The deaths of innocent Han Chinese in Lhasa was a tragedy that sparked deep and unassailable nationalism: riots in Tibet were a direct challenge not only to China’s unity, but to the identity of Chinese people everywhere.

This intensity of attention focused on the situation was one of the first major revelations for us as we witnessed events unfold from within China. No one ever followed the news this closely. Traditionally, news in China has meant good news; the actual reporting of (some) bad news is only a recent phenomenon. But after the riots, in a year of bad news that seemed to have reached its nadir (sadly it hadn’t), our students who normally could not be kept awake suddenly held newspapers over their desks to read during class, while students who usually paid attention tucked the newspapers inside their desks instead. Everyone was hungry for information, all the more because news like this — of people on the Chinese mainland fomenting direct rebellion against their government — was almost unheard of.

But if our students were rapt, we were no less fascinated by what was happening on the other side of the country. Being a Westerner in China as Tibetans took to the streets brought much more nuance to my limited understanding of Tibet’s history. For instance, according to some indicators, the Chinese claim that Tibetan people are far better off under Chinese rule holds some weight: certainly many Tibetans have benefited economically from Chinese rule, and Tibetans no longer live in the well-defined social castes that have been compared to feudalism, or in some cases slavery. Further, at the time of China’s invasion in 1959, Tibet’s independence had been semi-officially declared for just a little over fifty years, and even then was never fully recognized by a China that had so often acted as Tibet’s big brother. For centuries, the relationship between Tibet and China had been in flux, a flux in which it is unclear how often Tibet was simply a “benefactor” of the relationship and how often it was a fully subordinate entity.

On the other side of history, however, Chinese claims that the Dalai Lama instigated the separatist riots in Tibet appear especially ludicrous in light of the Dalai Lama’s consistent, publicly repeated calls for Tibet to remain under Chinese rule, a position he has taken for almost 30 years. In fact, from his position in exile, the Dalai Lama, unbeknownst to many Westerners, is pushing only for more autonomy for Tibet within China (including increased religious freedoms), but not for independence.

The outcry from the Western world about events in Tibet last spring prompted a second wave of Chinese reaction, including innumerable, indignant public declarations that Tibet “was, is, and will always be part of China,” (this phrase taken from ubiquitous t-shirts and at least one giant sticker I saw affixed to the side of a car parked on campus). Following comments by the French government and the disruption of the Olympic torch relay in Paris, Lacey and I witnessed firsthand a series of nationalist anti-French demonstrations and megaphone-powered citizen boycotts of the chain Carrefour, protests which were ultimately damped down by the Chinese government itself (which clearly likes protests even less than French criticism). A student friend of mine even dropped his French major and switched to English. Westerners, and the western press in particular, were vilified across China, sometimes rightly, for a total lack of understanding of the situation between China and Tibet — a reaction we probably escaped simply because we were there.

Throughout this episode, I kept trying to think of ways to prod my Chinese friends or students to find fresh perspectives on what had happened, to stop regurgitating the line spit forth by party officials, the China Daily and so many other government-controlled news sources (see Lacey’s great post). I tried using the example of the Los Angeles riots, figuring that acknowledging some problems in my own country first might help. The Los Angeles riots were a tragedy, my careful opening line went, but they were also a warning that race and class relations in Los Angeles and across the United States were in a fragile, untenable state. But the usual reaction to this was just a nod; everyone knew that race relations in the US were terrible. This was not news. I was out of ideas, but still it got so I wanted to shake people: but what about in Tibet? Why do you think the riots happened there?

So why didn’t I shake anyone? In the end, the answer to this question was one of the simplest things I learned about China. In a country whose history is undeniably long and glorious, whose economic growth is unprecedented, and whose population is enormous, the lack of rights experienced by all Chinese people is still a gigantic problem. And this lack of rights, while it is experienced differently (and often more harshly) by Tibetans, is nevertheless shared by everyone. My friends and students had no access to Chinese-language news sources that were outside the control of the government, a government they had no part in choosing, since they could not vote. They could not demonstrate freely; they had no access to a judicial system that would redress wrongs. We had a Chinese friend whose family’s house was robbed, but even with one glaringly obvious suspect, moving beyond a brief initial police report was impossible. She had no avenues for redress or appeal. Given this deeply ingrained and widely accepted lack of personal rights and freedoms, how could my friends and students be expected to think beyond the party line about why Tibetans were rioting? Many of their families had suffered, along with Tibetans, through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution; now they were more interested in putting history behind them. The focus in today’s China is on gaining personal economic stature and independence, an opportunity that has only recently been granted. And so the rioting may have felt more like an insult, a disruptive reminder, a claim to something that no one else had, either, but that everyone was trying to forget. If China was a family, Tibet was the abused younger sibling, and everyone else still had to deal with the same set of parents.

Guatemala forced me to think about my own country’s wealth and comfort, but China made me deeply grateful for its core values. The United States is deeply imperfect, but the right to publicly discuss these imperfections is not one to be taken lightly. We are so privileged to be able to draw our own conclusions about the events of the world, about our leaders and our policies, and to have the opportunity to change them. Watching events unfold in Tibet reminded me of that. So when Lacey and I finally reached the Olympics to watch soccer, gymnastics, volleyball, track and field, and diving, we had no hesitation about buying a giant American flag and wrapping ourselves in it. And thanks to my Chinese friends and students, glowingly good people who are moving with the best of intentions through an unfathomably complex new world, I had no qualms about waving the Chinese flag, either.

Going Away and Coming Back Again

As we expected, living abroad could be difficult, but it was also frequently goofy and sometimes downright hilarious. Usually the language differences and cultural oddities were just fun, and we often saw astonishing, jaw-dropping things. And most of the time we remembered to be profoundly grateful to be where we were.

When you spend time somewhere far away and then come back, people ask you a lot of the same questions over and over again, with “How was it?” and “Does it feel weird to be back?” being the hands-down winners. These questions are impossible to answer. But everyone knows that; you just need to find a way through them so you can both move forward again with whatever you’re doing right now, in the present. Sometimes the easiest way ahead is to tell a quick story, or even just drop a snappy one-liner like “I had two separate cab drivers fall asleep at the wheel while I was in China.” After you get your easy laugh, someone else will remember a time when they nodded off at the wheel, and soon you’ll be right back in the present where everyone is most comfortable.

Still, I always experience a lingering regret that I can’t answer those questions better. Especially because, if you do it right, there really is something invaluable you can learn from going away and coming back again, something that will get under your skin so that you can hardly remember a time when you didn’t understand it this way. For me this was the understanding — the personal, fully assimilated knowledge — that those are real people out there in the world. And because they are real people, and because you are a real person, you are connected to them in a way that might be easy to lose sight of but should never be forgotten, because we are so clearly one species, one humanity, with the same proclivity for laughter and tears, the same sets of needs and desires, the same tendency toward goodness and mercy and the same urge to look out for one another. We are connected in ways that might at first appear difficult to grasp, but become incredibly simple when experienced directly, when being adopted into a family in Guatemala or watching friends get married in China or coming back home and hugging strange men on the street after the Phillies win the World Series.

This is what I’d like to say when people ask me those questions. For brevity’s sake, I’ll probably keep answering “good, it was great,” and “no, it doesn’t feel that weird” — but for anyone who wants something a little more substantial, now I have somewhere to send them.

In honor of a memorable 2008 Olympics, Lacey and I have invented a new Olympic event.  It’s called the Alternative Triathlon.  Here’s how it works:

1. At the end of each Olympics (perhaps during the closing ceremonies?) three randomly selected events for the following Olympics’ Alternative Triathlon are announced.  For instance, it might be announced that in four years, the Alternative Triathlon will feature ping-pong, weightlifting, and synchronized swimming.
2. Countries choose their athletes as quickly as possible, based on an unprecedented level of athletic versatility (this will event make decathletes look like Oompah-Loompahs in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory). We suggest a training schedule of one year for each sport or event, with the final year to be used for trials and further versatility training (i.e. “bringing it all together”).  In the example above, the weightlifting training should clearly come first, followed by synchronized swimming in the second year and ping-pong in the third.  Of course, maintenance training would make each subsequent year in the lead-up to the Olympics more intense for the Alternative Triathletes.
3. The Alternative Triathletes will occupy a special place in the opening ceremonies, perhaps with an interpretive dance around the newly lit flame or some other unique function.
4. As with the other “thons,” the events in the Alternative Triathlon (hereafter referred to as “AT”) will take place on consecutive days.  There will also be two further schedule-related requirements.  First, each event will be scheduled at least three days apart from the regular event in the same sport.  In our example, this would mean that AT weightlifting must be scheduled at least three days after the end of regular Olympic weightlifting, AT synchro at least three days after regular synchro, and so on.  This will ensure that Alternative Triathletes still look cool even though they may be just a shade worse at their events than the regular athletes in those events.  The second specification is that the Alternative Triathlon must always be scheduled for the last three days of the games.  Since it will clearly be the most popular event, this will provide a fitting and modern climax to an aging tradition.

And that’s about it.  Comments?  Suggestions?  Please feel free to give us your honest feedback using the poll below (concept courtesy Chinese government):

Poll Answers

Yesterday, exactly one year after leaving the United States, I returned to it.  My excitement was tempered, though, because a typhoon and solidly booked flights (presumably full of other folks returning from the Olympics) is keeping Lacey in Hong Kong, where she was supposed to have a short layover from Beijing! Fortunately, the latest word is that after almost two days of hassle she is installed in a 4-Star hotel and will meet me in San Francisco on Wednesday if she can’t get a flight earlier than that.  For my part, I miss having Lacey to celebrate with, but it does feel good to be back in the US, and the weather in San Francisco is gorgeous.  It’s been quite a year, and I will plan to publish at least one “retrospective” blog post in the fall for those who are interested.

Friday, August 21
The Event: Men’s 10 Meter Platform Diving (Qualifying Round)
The Competitors: Thirty divers from about 20 countries.
The Venue: The Water Cube! The Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest were the two venues we’d heard the most about in the leadup to the Olympics.  But while the exterior and interior of the Bird’s Nest are almost equally fascinating, the inside of the Water Cube is seriously overshadowed by what’s going on outside.  When events end, the Water Cube puts on a show that seems to have a mind of its own, colors shifting and pulsing across its giant bubbled surface in gentle but unpredictable waves (although there is a definite preference for blues and violets, which provide a nice contrast to the reds and yellows of the Bird’s Nest just across the way).  All this is not to say that the inside of the Water Cube isn’t nice, but in many ways it just felt like a giant pool with a lot of seats around it (which it is).  Still, seeing the breathtaking height of the 10 meter diving platform at one end of the pool — 10 meters is well over 30 feet — and being in Michael Phelps’ eight-medal stomping ground were thrills in their own right.

What we knew: We knew that Chinese divers had already taken the gold medal in every other diving event, and that they were probably favored to win this final one, too, although there was one German challenger thought to be dangerous.  But we also knew that we were only watching the first, qualifying round of the three-part event.  So our own final Olympic event was to be more of a laid-back epilogue than a grand climax.

How we prepared: This being our last event, I continued the theme of making some kind of fashion statement, however random, by wearing my red, white and blue Phillies cap with a Chinese flag and an Olympic flag crossed and stuck into the band at the back, plus the (by now routine) American flag draped around my shoulders.  Lacey’s been going the other direction fashion-wise, so she just sported a blue patterned dress (and the flag around her shoulders when she got cold).  The best thing about my own getup was the laughs I got far from the Olympic Green, getting take out dinner in a distant restaurant and walking to the neighborhood subway with double takes the whole way.

Also worth mentioning here is our “Jia you” technique, which by this time we had perfected (although we didn’t use it as much here as at the other events).  Apparently, Chinese sports fans can sometimes get nasty, so before the Olympics the government “suggested” that the official chant for the Olympics would be “Jia you,” which literally means “add oil,” but which translates more like “Come on!” or “Let’s go!”  “You” here is pronounced like “yo.” Sure enough, just as the government suggested, at any event that the Chinese feel passionate about, every minute or two some guy will start yelling “Zhong guo!” (China!) and someone else will immediately pick up the cue and yell “Jia you!”  Soon everyone is chanting back and forth.  In a giant stadium it sounds really awesome.  So anyway, our technique was simple: when the Americans were up, I just yelled “Mei guo!” (USA!) and then added my own “Jia you!” a moment later.  At every event this automatically resulted in the turning of dozens, if not hundreds, of Chinese heads, all flashing huge grins when they saw the Meiguoren (American) who was doing the chant for his own country.  At our women’s volleyball event (when I had the Chinese and American flags on each cheek), I even got some neighbors offering to pick up the “Jia you” for me, and we got a decent “Mei guo . . . jia you” chant going with neighboring sections chiming in.  In the end I think this is more or less what the Olympics are supposed to be all about — breaking down cultural barriers and not getting too crazy with the nationalism — so it was a highly satisfying to connect with people and root for our teams at the same time.

What happened: This is about diving, after all, and there was a lot of it.  Really a lot.  I guess 6 rounds with 30 divers makes 180 dives in all.  So there were countless, breathless pre-dive moments on the platform when no one in the entire place spoke, slow careful headstands 10 meters above the water, dizzying flips and spins, some little splashes, a lot of medium splashes, and a few really big splashes, expressions of stony disappointment or subdued triumph by the divers climbing out of the pool, showers inexplicably broadcast on the big screen, and long stares at the scoreboard while the next diver was already readying himself at the end of the platform.  There was one score of ninety-nine for the top Chinese diver; the two Americans qualified by finishing in sixth and seventh place (the top eighteen divers qualified).  The famous German diver seemed to have underachieved a little, but maybe he was just getting warmed up for the semifinals and finals.  In general, the whole night had a strange lack of rhythm, with one diver after the other spinning off the platform and into the water and not much else, other than the constantly changing scores, to mark the time.  That’s not to say it wasn’t amazing to see what these guys were doing – it was, and I think diving is one of the coolest sports in the Olympics – but taken strictly as an event, it was more like a relaxing two and a half hours of watching waves on the beach than getting all caught up in an actual sporting competition.

Also of note: One of the British divers (who happened to qualify) looked like he was about 14 years old, and we found out later that he was, actually, 14 years old.  Apparently, diving has different minimum age requirements than, say, gymnastics, where the Chinese are currently being (re-)investigated for entering female gymnasts allegedly below the minimum age of 16.

On a different note, if you could say I grew up in any particular generation where diving is concerned, it would have to be the Greg Louganis generation.  This has as much to do with his famous attempt to break the platform with his head as his diving, although from what I remember he was really good at that, too.  Anyway, at our diving event I could feel the master’s legacy haunting me for most of the night.  Using our binoculars and the giant replay screens, I determined that several divers actually grazed the platform with their hair on the way down.  Have we not learned anything from Greg?  Does no one remember the horrified gasps, the blood in the pool, the hair matted across the wet, dripping gash?  Seriously, I think diving is awesome, but if you ask me these guys need to push a little further away from the platform.

Thursday, August 21
The Event: Athletics (various events)
The Competitors: Too many to list
The Venue: The Bird’s Nest!!  In some ways the venue was the star of our night.  Although I have no architectural expertise whatsoever, for me the stadium’s curves conveyed an impression of uplifting contrasts, both soft and soaring, muted and majestic.  I’ll plan to post several photos in an upcoming “Photos” post, so keep your eyes out for it!

What we knew: We knew we’d be seeing several finals, most notably the Men’s 400 meter final, which would feature favored Americans Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merrit. We also knew that we had missed a chance to see the Chinese fans at their best (and surely their wildest), since the Men’s 100 meter hurdles final would not feature the injured Liu Xiang, the national hero and defending Olympic champion who limped out for the trials on Tuesday and then limped back off after a few steps.

How we prepared:  We were starting to run out of new outfits and ideas at this point.  Despite a couple inquiries, I hadn’t been able to find an “Obama 08″ shirt to go with my American flag, so I went with my “I [Heart] China shirt” to complement the Stars and Stripes. Also of note: I keep neglecting to mention that we purchased an excellent pair of small binoculars while still in Qingdao (where they were much cheaper than in Beijing), and they served us well at all events, especially this one.

What happened: To be honest, Track and Field is kind of difficult to follow.  There are usually lots of things going on at once; for instance, the Men’s Decathlon High Jump Event, off at one end of the field, literally took the entire night.  And although our seats weren’t terrible, a lot of it was very far away.  That being said, we witnessed a lot of cool (and a couple not-so-cool) things, which I will put in a list since that’s kind of how an evening watching track and field feels.

• The qualifying rounds of the Men’s and Women’s 1500 meters were cool, mostly because four laps around the track is long enough that you can see how utterly exhausting it is, but the Olympic runners are sprinting the entire time.  Props to them.
• The Women’s Javelin final was unexpectedly exciting, with a surprising amount of noise from the crowd as we followed the dominant throws of the Russian who led through all five rounds, only to watch a Czech woman beat her on the incredible second-to-last throw of the night, which fell just centimeters away from the world record.
• The Men’s Triple Jump was cool, but it took too long.  And why, exactly, do they need to jump three times?  Whose idea was this event?
• The Men’s and Women’s 400 meter relay (qualifying round) were horribly disappointing for the Americans.  Both the men’s and women’s team dropped the baton on the final transfer, with the men’s team easily set to qualify and the women’s team leading the field.  Even though I don’t follow track and field at all, watching this happen the second time made me feel sick in that special way that only a lifelong Philadelphia sports fan can.
• Fortunately, the relay disappointments were redeemed quite a bit by a United States SWEEP in the Men’s 400 meters.  This was incredibly exciting, especially because we only took bronze by having our third-best runner (who wasn’t expected to medal) literally dive across the finish line. The gold medal winner, LaShawn Merritt, has apparently been emerging from the shadow of Jeremy Wariner (the defending world champion) this year, so although Jeremy looked a little bitter afterward, it was fun to see Merritt blow away the field on the final straightaway.
• The Men’s 100 meter hurdles were meant to be the climax of the evening, but without Liu Xiang there was a lot less frenzy.  Still, it’s a big event and it was fun to watch Cuban Dayron Robles (who broke Liu Xiang’s record this summer) bound to the gold.  It’s crazy that they can run so fast and jump over all those sawhorses.
• There were a couple other qualifiers, I think, but these are the events I remember best. I think my favorite moment, though, was when the medal ceremony for the Men’s 400 meters was announced (some ceremonies are postponed until the next day).  This meant that we not only got to watch the three US men parade around the stadium with their flags after the race, but we then got to watch them take the stand and receive their medals.  Most importantly, though, for the first and only time in our Olympics, we heard the old “Star-Spangled Banner!”  It was a good moment (and they really play a lovely version at the Olympics).

Also of note: The night’s events were actually interspersed with medal ceremonies, including two or three from the night before.  So aside from hearing our own anthem for the first time, this had a couple other significant repercussions: we got to admire Usain Bolt and his many poses as he accepted his gold medal for the 200 meters from the night before, and I now know the Jamaican national anthem by heart.