| Friday, August 30, 2002 |
From: Meg Thomsen meginchina@yahoo.com
Subject: The More You Grow, the Less You Know
Hello my Peeps,
One day this spring, I was whiling away the afternoon in Dali, a popular backpacker destination in Yunnan province about twenty-six hours south of here. Having been in Dengguan for the majority of the spring, I was staring at all of the foreigners just as much as any of the Chinese folks, and I felt just as tongue-tied. So I did what I do best here in China. I sat back and listened. The foreigners spoke at great length about China. They criticized its squalor, its oppressive government, its sanitary conditions. They proceeded to solve, with great expertise, all of the problems that the Motherland is facing. None of them spoke Chinese. All of them had been in China for less than three weeks.
A slightly tipsy New Zealander chimed in, "You see, I visited a farm in China, so I feel like I KNOW the Chinese countryside. The peasants are so happy. Every day, they gather their crops and spend the day with their families. There's nothing like the simple and enlightened mind of the Chinese person."
How easy it is to make generalizations about a people, about a culture. Peace Corps volunteers are just as guilty of this as anyone else. And if I have learned anything in this country, it's that I don't know a thing. I can't tell you about America and I can't tell you about China. All I can tell you about is Boston, and that might even be too big. All I can tell you about Dengguan is about the people whom I've had the priviledge to meet.
Everyone who has come to visit me here has asked, "What has happened to you?" It's not just the fact that I look horrible, with tufts of hair growing in from where it fell out last fall, pallid skin from the sunless sky and clothes that have been ruined by dirt, pepper oil and Chinese washing machines. It's my personality, the fact that I've had to get tougher in order not to fall apart. It's an old Chinese saying that the best sort of personality is that like bamboo, flexible yet strong. I've finally grown a backbone in China.
This is not always a pretty sight. I've erupted into screaming matches with bus drivers, fruit vendors and people at the bank. There have been moments when I'm proud of myself, and moments when I'm not. Perhaps that's one of the greatest parts of being here is that only when you take everything apart, only when you admit that all that you know in America means nothing here, can you start to rebuild. And thus, I'm proud of all of it. I'm proud of the learning; I'm proud of the experience. I'm even proud of the ugly tufts of hair sticking out of my head. Some people do things here, and then say, "I don't know what got into me. It must be China. China drives people crazy." What I have learned in China is that it brings out whatever is deep down and shows you who you really are. It tests your mettle. It strips off all of the outside stuff and shows you who you ever were, before the world started to give you its gifts.
Wu Lixia once told me, "There are three kinds of foreigners in China. The first kind are like canaries in a cage. They stay in a beautiful hotel, and they look at China through the window, but they never go outside. The second kind of foreigner is like a pet dog. They are led on a leash by tour groups. They don't speak any Chinese and cannot go anywhere without their guide. The third kind of foreigner is the kind that is almost like a regular Chinese person. They go to the market, and they speak Chinese. They live here. Tang Mali, I think that you are becoming the third kind of foreigner." This is all that I wanted. To come to this country, have all of my knowledge stripped away, and to see what's inside. To see if I could really do it. And this is the only way that I may begin to understand the slightest bit of China, is to listen to those around me, to try and understand the tiny corner in which I live.
After the New Zealander ended his diatribe about China, I got up and left. I walked down a stony alley. I found an old lady and her grandson, who had runny eyes, a bad cold and was incredibly dirty. I asked her questions about Dali and she asked me questions about Boston. I enjoyed the conversation much more.
Be happy all.
Love, Meg
"Well, I'm living in a foreign country
And I'm bound to cross the line.
Beauty walks a razor's edge
Someday I'll make her mine."
-Bob Dylan
Love, Meg