After over a year of thinking and talking about it, it's finally here. In six days, we will begin our trek along El Camino de Santiago. And in reconnecting to my Spanish self, I have decided to (at least attempt to) return to my blog after an almost three year hiatus.
Wait, who is we? Well, we will be starting off with seven people: Me (obviously), Jake (again, obvious), Mom, Patty (Mom's friend), Justin (my older brother by five years), Christy (my sister-in-law... also Justin's wife), and Jackie (my best friend from college). We will be quite the crew! Over the 28 days, however, we will gradually dwindle down to four: Me, Jake, Mom, and Patty.
And what is El Camino de Santiago? The short answer is that it is a trail that goes across Spain and ends in Santiago de Compostela. We will be doing the French Route, which starts in the Pyrenees mountains, between Spain and France, and heads West across Spain. For more information or to see the suggested day-by-day plan we will be following(ish), check out this website. Also, you could watch the movie "The Way" to get a visual of the journey we will be embarking upon.
Since I won't be lugging my computer around in my backpack, I'm going to try to blog via paper and pencil and then post pictures so that I can avoid the annoyance of typing on an iPad or iPhone. Here goes the trial run*...
*I think I need to write bigger next time.
As Jake and I head towards the beginning of El Camino de Santiago, we are also
leaving behind our lives in Shenyang. When we return to China in August,
we will be working at a different school within our company, in Wuhan.
(This is the rough equivalent of moving to Tallahassee, Florida, from
Boston, Massachusetts.) Our time in Shenyang was filled with blessings,
challenges, and a great deal of growth. But I can't possibly begin to
do the stories or people of Shenyang justice at
this point, so I will resign this season of life to an unblogged
existence. Nevertheless, blogged or not, this city will always have a
special place in Jake's and my hearts. It is the place where we first became
friends, then fell in love, and recently began our marriage. This was
our first home together, but far from the last. I'm so thankful that this
next time I start over in a new city, I'll get to do it with my best
friend by my side.
Before we get to that point, though, we're headed off for an incredible summer adventure!
再见，沈阳。
¡Hasta pronto, Madrid!
When we graduated from high school and headed to college, Jackie and I were both sent off with support and comfort from our parentsthat I'm sure aligned quite closely to the words of Seuss:
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...
[Oh, The Places You'll Go]
And we sure have trekked those shoes in many different directions. We’ve experimented with clubs and classes. We’ve explored various career options. And we’ve wandered the world.
Oh, the places we’ve been, together.
Holland and a variety of other cities in Western MI.
Chicago, IL.
Hershey, PA.
Washington DC.
New York City, NY.
Rome, Italy.
South Bend, IN.
Rindge, NH.
Seville, Spain.
Madrid, Spain. Shenyang, China. Hong Kong, China.
Since 2008, Jackie and I have lived together in 4 different college housing units and a Holland family’s home together. We’ve painstakingly nurtured an international long distance friendship on four different occasions and kept in touch halfway across the United States when on breaks. We’ve Skyped. We’ve e-mailed. We’ve sent Whatsapp messages. We’ve sent snail mail letters. We’ve flown across time zones to see each other. We’ve made the effort, but it hasn’t always been - isn’t always - easy.
You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know.
You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
[Oh, The Places You'll Go]
I HAVE gotten mixed up.
Living abroad and maintaining relationships is not easy. I’ve gone through phases of excellent communication and others when I’ve pulled so far into the here and now that I forget the importance of where I’ve come from. It’s a balancing act that sometimes ends with me dropping everything on my international buffet plate and then slipping on the fallen glass noodles. I find myself lying flat on my back, in a slimy mess of carrot soup, fried rice, curry, and soy-drenched eggplant. And in that moment when I’m a complete mess and am torn between curling up and crying or laughing a deep-belly laugh of utter ridiculousness, I miss the friends and family who have known me the longest. Out of pride, I’m wary to return to them in need, when I’ve left so many conversations un-had, apologies unsaid, excitement un-shared.
And when you're alone there's a very good chance, you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.
[Oh, The Places You'll Go]
Living abroad and being “alone” can be scary… but more than that, it is emotionally taxing. I constantly struggle to communicate my experiences and feelings appropriately and to understand fully the experiences and feelings of my friends and family stateside.
And sometimes, I don’t want to go on.
I want to go home.
But, I stay.
And not just because I signed a two-year contract and I want my word to mean something. And not because my heart doesn’t really know where home is now that my friends and family are scattered across the United States. But because God brought me here for a purpose and he is teaching me through every blunder and triumph.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
[Lamentations 3:22-24]
And so, I rededicate myself once again to the challenge of maintaining relationships across timezones, oceans, cultures. I bask in the love of the Lord, knowing that I must have grace and mercy for myself in my previous failures as He has had for me.
“Let’s not be strangers, okay?” Let’s not.
Especially when we have memories such as these...
In Shenyang, Jackie, Auntie Mimi, and I explored while Jackie and Auntie Mimi calmly recovered from jet lag. We ate dinners together, got massages, explored some shopping areas, and met up with some of my friends. It was nice for Jackie and I to experience some of my "normal life" together, though I don't normally invite my masseur over to my home to eat chocolate. (There was a bit of a miscommunication when I was trying to explain that Hershey's - hǎo shí - is from my hometown, a word I didn't know so I just said "my home" in Chinese. It's quite possible that I ended up saying that I have good food - hǎo chī - at my house and then asking them if they like to eat chocolate. At least that would explain why they had the idea that we were all going to go eat dinner together... OOPS.)
In Hong Kong, the adventures continued...
We did not delay in seeing the sights. Our first evening, we headed out to the Temple Market, conveniently located just a few blocks from our apartment in Kowloon.
The entrance to the night market
Our first full day, we headed to Macau, China's other Special Administrative Region (the first being Hong Kong). Interestingly, Macau was the last European colony in Asia, "administered by Portugal from the mid-16th century until late 1999," which meant I had some flashbacks ahead of me (Wikipedia). We took a 90 minute high-speed ferry ride to the island (after I ran back to the apartment to get my forgotten passport... OOPS, again) and spent the better part of the day wandering Macau.
A deserted street in Macau
Apartment building
Drinking tea while waiting for our lunch
Inside a Buddhist temple
Incense for sale in the temple
While wandering around Macau, we put to use Jackie's recently-bought selfie stick, which she juggled with her DSLR. One of my most recent life questions stemmed from this: Why does a selfie stick seem to be so intrinsically entertaining?
Which kind of photographer are you, Jack?
Macau was indeed a bizarre mix of the Iberian peninsula and China. Walking around seeing jamón serrano hanging from storefronts and Portuguese egg tarts made me think I had teleported myself back to Spain or Portugal. I glanced at Chinese signs before settling on the Portuguese translations, forgetting that translations were often also posted in English. This Iberian Peninsula-China fusion, experienced with my Midwestern best friend, was possibly the most bizarre experience to date of my worlds colliding.
The door of a public bus
A sign for one of the historical sites in the center of Macau
The next day in Hong Kong, we explored the area at the base of Victoria's peak, as well as "The Peak," which we traveled to by funicular railway.
St. John's cathedral
Waiting in line to get to the top
We were all surprised that "The Peak" consists mostly of two major shopping malls and that you initially seemed to be trapped inside one of the buildings. But when we finally made our way out, we enjoyed the views of the harbor.
After making it back down on the tram, we took the Star Ferry across the harbor back to Kowloon for the low price of 3 HKD... or $0.39. Not too shabby...
Making our way across the harbor
Greetings, barge!
On our last morning together, Jackie and I hiked part of Dragon's Back on Hong Kong Island. We were early to rise that morning, which was convenient for the trails which were quickly filling up when we left the mountains two hours later.
Looking over the harbor
"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."
- Albert Camus
The ants go marching one by one. Hoorah! Hoorah! The ants go marching one by one. Hoorah! Hoorah!
We think this was a form of public transportation...
After our hike, I packed up my suitcase and we headed over to see the Giant Buddha near the airport. We took our time getting there, accounting for a little bit more time than was recommended by the guidebook, which was 90 minutes. After we arrived and bought our tickets for the 20 minute cable car each way, however, we realized there was a 30+ minute line and we would be cutting the time quite close. That didn't stop us, however, from getting in line (we had, after all, already bought non-refundable tickets) and preparing to race to the Buddha and up all 270 stairs before running back to get in line for the cable car. I'm pretty our side-by-side sprints, Jackie with her selfie stick and me with my duffel bag tucked under my arm like a football, was quite a sight to see.
In the cable car on the way in
There he is!
Surrounding the giant Buddha
The man himself!
Well, that's a brief summary of what we did... but what about what we ate?! Don't fret! Per usual, I've included plenty of food pictures for your mouth-watering pleasure.
Shrimp and leek dumplings at the restaurant next to our apartment
Fried noodles (they were actually crunchy) in Macau
One
afternoon, Jackie and I walked from the port on Kowloon back to our apartment
and stopped whenever we saw masses of people eating somewhere. We
ordered what seemed to be popular and then continued on our way, walking
to work off the calories and to make room for whatever we would next find.
Fried dumplings and an unidentifiable yellow food that all the locals were eating
The stand where we ordered pork and cabbage baozi
The best baozi I've consumed to date. SO DELICIOUS.
A hole in the wall where we filled any holes we still had
The
most unique food we ate was definitely the fish ice cream. (To clarify,
it did not, in any way, TASTE like fish.) We stumbled upon a storefront
not much larger than my apartment bathroom where people were gathered
and eating artwork made of ice cream. Food trends are probably the only
trend I jump onto wholeheartedly, so the 40 minute wait time didn't
deter me from placing my order. We ordered, walked around a market for
30 minutes, and returned just in time to have our intricate ice creams
presented to us.
A fish waffle with yogurt ice cream, chocolate drizzle, peanuts, chocolate covered grapes, and a custard pocket in the tail! Mmmmmmmm...
Welp, there's just a "few" pictures that give you some insight to Jackie's and my China adventures. Of course, however, the pictures fail to show the little moments that are so precious when you get to spend time face-to-face with your best friend. They do not show our contorted faces as we ate our noodles that we had made too spicy when we added too much hot pepper. They do not record the synchronized belly laughs and crying-induced chokes as we sniffled through "The Fault in Our Stars" on the plane. They do not catch our non-verbal communication as our Brazilian cable car mates and their children freaked out in Portuguese, each of us understanding bits of their conversation because of similarities to the Spanish and Italian language.
They can never show the thankfulness that I have that my best friend traveled across 12 time zones to CHINA, to spend time with me. You're the greatest, Jack.
China pretty much shuts down during Chun Jie. Cities empty out as people travel to their parents' homes in small villages (or cities with less than 5 million people) and notices of modified store hours are taped onto almost every door, right above the chain lock wrapped around the handles.
Jake and I knew this, but we still felt like we needed to travel out of Shenyang for a portion of the Chinese New Year. I can only do so many loads of laundry before everything is clean and cook so much before I run out of dishes that I can make without an expensive trip to the import store. It's nice to sit in Starbucks on my computer for hours, but I'm in China for goodness sake! I want to see China, not hide away in a Western corner until school reopens.
So, to Changchun we went.
Wait. Where's Changhcun?
Don't worry, you're not the only one who didn't know. I had only heard of the city when I read a blog entry about cities in Northeast China and many of my co-workers had no idea where it was located.
The train ride from Shenyang to Changchun was just over three hours
Okay. But wait. Why would you go to Changchun?
Also not a bad question. Changchun isn't exactly a top tourist attraction. That's one of the reasons we went.
Since we knew it was probable that things would be closed, we didn't want to invest a lot of money in a trip that could easily turn out to be a flop. So we went in with low expectations, hoping to see the Puppet Emperor's imperial palace and the large Buddhist temple. We considered a trip to Changbai mountain or Jilin to see the rime, but knew it might not work out. So when it didn't, we weren't phased. There were dozens of small victories and high fives and though Changchun is definitely not a must-see, we had a blast. First of all, and possibly most importantly, we had wonderful luck with food...
Lucky find #1: Changchun's Muslim noodles, a hole in the wall very similar to one that we have in Shenyang
Noodle soup with egg
Mutton chuan (pronounced "twar")
Lucky find #2: A hot pot restaurant with prime time people watching and PBR
Before I show you hot pot pictures, I want to flashback to October, when Jake and I first ate at a hot pot restaurant. It was a Saturday night when everyone was busy and we ended up with no plans. So, we hopped on a bus, rode it until we saw something interesting, and got off. We walked around, watched the masses of Chinese people doing an aerobics/dance fusion exercise routine, and then sought out food.
The restaurants seemed to be just like Goldilocks... too full (people perched on buckets eating in the streets), too empty, juuuuuust right.
What we didn't realize was that the juuuuuust right restaurant had a menu with no pictures, an oddity in China and a major hurdle for newbies who had only been in China for 2 months. We glanced around at what people were eating and realized that they all seemed to be eating out of metal bowls that were in the center of their tables. It was also warm inside the restaurant. Using our excellent deductive reasoning skills, we determined that we must be at a hot pot restaurant.
Nevertheless, neither of us had ever had hot pot, nor knew how it worked. We watched as they took metal bowls with what seemed like dirty dish water past our table to others' tables and wondered why this was such an attractive meal to our co-workers.
As we stared at the sheet of paper full of hanzi (Chinese characters), we decided we could at least choose the animal from which we wanted the meat. We looked up beef on Jake's Pleco app and tried to match it with the characters on the page. As we searched, three more waiters gathered around our table, in addition to the one that had been watching us the entire time.
Finally, one waiter stepped forward and said, "I speak a little English." Phew! Jake pointed to a random set of characters on the menu and said, "Uhh... what's this?" She looked at it and, after thinking for a moment, said decidedly, "Blood." Jake looked at me in disbelief. What?! No way. "Uhh, okay. What's this?" Again, she responded, "Blood." Jake pulled out his phone and translated blood into hanzi on his phone, sure that if he showed her the definition she would realize she misspoke. Instead, she looked at his phone and said, "Yes." Jake asked her cautiously, pointing to a section of the menu, "Are these all blood?" "Yes," she affirmed. "Looks like we're having blood, Jake!" I chuckled, thinking it couldn't be that different from morcilla in Spain. Luckily for him, however, he had studied a bit before he came to China and he managed to spit out, "Bu yao zheige." (I don't want this.)
We didn't get blood, but I did let them talk me into ordering a number of random things off of the menu, not knowing if we were ordering a normal amount of food or an absurd amount of dishes. Later, as plates of uncooked noodles, meat, mushrooms, and greens came out, we were pleasantly surprised. The waiters led us over to the sauces, which we originally thought would go inside the pot (which explains why I put two tablespoons worth of garlic in my bitty bowl), and we mixed sauces as they pointed and smiled. They stood over our table and told us when to put the different ingredients into the pot and at one point, went so far as to take a napkin out of the napkin holder and hand it to me. Jake and I laughed at our ignorance and celebrated our success of about having navigated such a complicated meal alone.
Four months later, we felt like old pros at hot pot...
The hot pot apparatus
This wasn't floating in here on accident...
Mutton
Noodles
Cabbage and beef
The hot pot cooking away
The finished product, just before being slathered in peanut sauce
Dipping sauce: a mixture of peanut sauce, soy sauce, red pepper sauce, green onion, sugar, and an appropriate amount of garlic
Lucky find #3: A countryside restaurant
On Saturday afternoon, Jake and I wandered rather aimlessly along the streets of Changchun for almost an hour, looking half-heartedly for food.
Walking down a side street in the center of Changchun
We were hungry, but not so hungry, and we didn't know what we wanted until we found it. When we stumbled upon an impressive rustic building that was clearly open, we wandered in. But when I saw a couple of men cooking just inside the entry and talking to a number of people, I panicked and thought, "I just walked into someone's house!"
Just inside the entrance
I ran out, only to see someone taking a picture of the outside of the building. I looked at her, then looked back to the door, where a man had followed me to the door and was staring at me from the other side of the glass. I managed to ask her, "Wo zai zheige difang chi fan ma?" (Can I eat at this place?) She kindly answered, "Yes" without insultingly drawing attention to my cluelessness; I called Jake back and in we went.
We were led into the restaurant by the man at the window and sat down next to a larger than life statue of Mao. For the following hour or so, we enjoyed the rustic, rural home-like ambiance as much as the delicious food.
The meat, green bean, and corn dish that the waitress recommended when I asked her, "Women zai Changchun chi shenme?" (What should we eat in Changchun?)
We also appreciated the city's cultural attractions...
The Puppet
Emperor's imperial palace was quite impressive as well. We didn't know
what to expect, especially after we walked for 20 minutes around the
perimeter without seeing any life or open gate through which we could
enter. But when we finally made it to the entrance, we were pleasantly
surprised.
One of the large doors in the patio
Inside the palace
The row of shops just outside the palace
The
palace was heavily influenced by European design and seemed quite
different from the palaces we had seen in Shenyang and in Beijing. It
also had an entire museum area describing the actions of the puppet
emperor and the ways that he had betrayed his country. The museum
descriptions were written from a very patriotic perspective and made
"good" use of quotations to show sarcasm... except for when they were
put around the wrong "word". It reminded me a little bit of the Friends
episode when Joey was trying to figure out how to use the air quotation
marks...
On Sunday we went to the Banruo Buddhist temple, which we later realized was not a tourist attraction. We first got turned away but were then ushered in, so as we walked around we realized that we may have been mistaken for Buddhists. Oops.
Pagoda
In the courtyard
And last but not least, we overcame a few language hurdles...
The first hurdle...
...was when we tried to check into our hotel, only to find that they didn't have Jake's reservation. It took us a good while to explain that we wanted two rooms instead of one and part of the process involved me following the grandmother of the operation up in the elevator to see the rooms and pick which kind we wanted. As Jake stood at the desk talking to the receptionist and I got in the elevator, it suddenly hit me that this shady hotel (We paid 352 kuai, or $58 for two rooms for two nights...), could very well be the kind of place one tries to avoid. I tried to get Jake's attention as I followed the grandmother to the elevator, "Uh, hey! Jake! I'm, uh, going upstairs! Hey, Jake! I'm just going to look at the rooms for a few minutes so I should be back down soon..." I didn't hear a response, but as she hit the 5 button and the elevator doors closed I awkwardly/desperately called out to him, "5th floor Jake! 5th floor!" The doors closed, and I smiled nervously at the little Chinese woman next to me as we went upstairs.
Of course, it all ended up being fine, but it was one of those stories for the book. Successfully checking into a hotel where no one speaks English makes you feel pretty victorious, even if said hotel is one that considers toilet paper and soap to be optional amenities...
Our second major hurdle...
...was when we decided we would try to go see a movie. Shops were closing for the evening around 5 PM and we had no desire to spend any extra time in our hotel rooms. So in the late afternoon, we went to the IMAX movie theater to check on our options for movies in English. The workers were confused, either by my poor Chinese, my request about English movies, or both, and it took quite a while for us to figure out that one of the movies did indeed have zimu (subtitles) in English.
However, when we later returned to buy the tickets, we spoke with a different worker, who claimed that there weren't subtitles. Confused, we looked around to find the workers we had spoken with earlier. When we finally found one, she denied having told us that there were English subtitles.
We walked away from the counter and pondered our options, only to realize that we had banked completely on seeing the movie that evening. We finally decided to go see the movie, even though it was completely in Chinese, so we once again approached the counter. This time, a random Chinese man accompanied us with 35 kuai tickets for a showing of the Jackie Chan movie.
Paying for our tickets became a long ordeal as this random Chinese man continuously talked at us and the cashier refused to take our money. Finally, I shoved the 220 kuai into the cashier's hand and she, without speaking, handed it to the guy next to us. He gave her two of the tickets and us 20 kuai and in a few moments, we walked away with two tickets for the movie that we wanted to see, each priced at 35 kuai instead of the 110 kuai listed price.
We were bemused... until it dawned on us that the guy had made 65 kuai off of each of our tickets. He had given us a "discount" of 10 kuai each, but had exchanged his discount tickets and made 130 kuai... enough for hot pot for four! And the movie theater cashier had let him do it right in front of her.
Chinese: 91, Rogers/Strother: 0
Well, at least we saved 20 kuai? Oh, and the movie did indeed have English subtitles!
Chinese: 91, Rogers/Strother: 1
Our third major hurdle...
...was knowing what to do when we had 6 random Chinese people gathered around our train seats at any given time. After exhausting the few conversations that I can successfully navigate (I am from... Where are you going? I'm going... I am a teacher in Shenyang... Did you make jiaozi for Chun Jie? I went to my friend's house...), there was a lot of smiling and repetition of "Ting bu dong" (I hear, but I don't understand).
I learned to ignore the man who leaned over the railing and stared incessantly at me for 45 minutes. We got our pictures taken with strangers (who later posted them to Wechat) and managed awkward laughs as one called out to us, "Never say goodbye!" We thanked the Chinese who knew English and helped to translate conversations for us and I let them look through my Chinese book and passport. Neither train ride was a waste of time, but rather a strange mix of Chinese class application and foreign relationship building. All of those Fulbright speeches during orientations and mid-year seminars must have stuck because I can't help but consider myself an ambassador whenever I am abroad.
Overall, though, the trip was very relaxed. We killed time trying to find Jake a new pair of dress shoes (a near impossible task since Chinese stores only stock up to size 44 instead of Jake's size... 46), studying Chinese over coffee, and playing my pocket version of Xiang-qi (Chinese chess) that I bought outside of the palace.
I definitely consider it three days well spent, a bonus to my Chun Jie experience after dinner with Nancy's family!
