Wednesday, January 8, 2003

From: Meg Thomsen meginchina@yahoo.com
Subject: White Christmas

Hello Friends and Family,

On Christmas Eve, a group of friends tumbled through the streets of Chengdu. The weather was cold, and we all surreptitiously sipped from a Nalgene bottle filled with cognac to keep warm. We were wrapping our arms around each others' shoulders and nudging through the crowds when we first saw the snow. SNOW! It was our first snow in China, and we ran toward the fat white flakes drifting from the sky. We lifted our faces upwards and we raised our hands to touch the cold and rub it between our fingers. It was slippery and a bit sticky. The "snow" was made of soap froth shooting from a machine propped on the roof of a restaurant. In the doorway, a thin man in a cheap Santa Claus suit and a Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose set beckoned us to come inside. We kept walking.

Two days later, the real snow fell. I was walking down the street with Annie when we saw it. At first, the flakes were so small that we thought that it was flying dust. They got bigger, they got whiter, and everyone came outside to watch. This was better than any soap bubble machine. It hadn't snowed in Chengdu since 1994, so people raised a hand tentatively to feel the cold. Then, they smiled. Snow is a big enough reason around here to close a store, leave class for a few minutes, go home from work a bit early. It's a good enough reason for everyone to take a few minutes out of their day to go outside and look around.

It was also snowing in Dengguan. Chen Bin, a teacher at our school, looked out the window and saw the snow, so she decided to leave school a little early. She got into a taxi with another teacher and sped off down Dengguan's only road. There was a farm truck, a screech of wheels and a crash, and now Chen Bin is gone.

I heard the news from Chengdu, from a choked-up Yang Ning on the telephone. I packed my bags and went back to Dengguan for the wake. People burned incense and bowed to an old portrait wrapped in black crepe paper. Yang Ning and I linked arms and went in to greet the family. Everyone had red eyes, but no one cried.

Early Monday morning, we gathered at the school gate and got onto buses to the funeral. The rickety buses climbed the hills into Zigong's countryside, stopping two hours later in foggy Gongjing. We were silent during the ride, except for an occasional hiccoughed sob. We got off the bus and arranged ourselves in strict hierarchical order: family, close friends, school leaders, teachers, students. We bowed our heads and trudged inside in our line.

In the middle of the room lay Chen Bin's body, looking for all the world like Snow White wrapped in a silken CCCP flag. She lay on a chilled jade table with a glass top. We stood in a line, we shivered in the cold, and all of us bowed our heads and wept. After the eulogies were finished, we walked around her body and each of us bowed three times to say goodbye. We walked back outside into the fog, and came back to school.

What did I know about Chen Bin? She was a nice lady. She was thirty-eight, and had a fourteen-year old daughter. Her husband loved her. She was popular with the students.

More? She had a gentle voice; she played on the English faculty women's basketball team wearing high heels with her shorts; she highlighted her hair; she had great taste in boots. Missionaries had found her at some point in her life and she was a Christian. She studied in Indiana for six months. This fall, she was supposed to go back there but she couldn't. I saw her the day that she found out. I could tell that she'd been crying.

After the funeral, Caryn and I linked arms with Yang Ning and went back to Dengguan, following our only road. We silently looked at the road. Dengguan's road is a labor of love- during the last year, they have managed to pave nearly the whole thing using almost no machines. There were motorcycles, taxis, buses, water buffalo, bicycles and peasants on the road: just life as usual. Caryn looked at me, and her eyes were still red. "L'chaim," she said quietly: "To life."

Chen Bin's death doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me. She was young; she was wonderful; people loved her. But people die. People die needlessly and it's still as hard for me to accept that now as it was when I was four years old and found out what death was.

And thus, the only thing that I can take away from this is "L'chaim." To life. Today, I could be buying vegetables at the market and happily sipping cognac from a Nalgene bottle. Tomorrow, I could be laid out on that jade table in the cold. Every day is a gift, and somehow the knowledge of its value makes it all the more precious. Thus, I say, "To life!"

Meg