Saturday, October 6, 2001

From: Meg Thomsen meginchina@yahoo.com
Subject: Sky Watching

Hello Folks!

Autumn is here, both in America and in China. I've been missing home lately, thinking about apple orchards, sugar maple leaves, and the Topsfield Fair. The first Guinness of the season, hot apple chai, brown paper bags of cider donuts tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things! Still, I'm finding things to love about autumn in China. The bamboo doesn't change colors, and I can't find any pumpkins large enough to carve. But China's got tang hulers, grandmas knitting sweaters galore and the same crisp beginnings to autumn.

We've just returned from a great vacation. Molli, Erin, Julie, Amy, Lee and I went up to Songpan, a Tibetan settlement nine hours north of Chengdu. Our goal was to see blue skies, pristine rivers and few people- all amenities that we here in southern Sichuan lack. We found it in Songpan. As we travelled north of Chengdu, the air pollution that keeps the sky in a perpetual state of grey began to clear away and I found myself looking at the first truly blue sky that I've seen since coming to China. The three days that we spent horse trekking through the hills will carry me through life for a while.

Here's the beauty of it: the food was awful (cabbage stew and fried bread), we were cold as all get-out at night, most of us were sick by the end of the trip (Molli had a sinus infection, Amy had a nasty cold, Lee and I both were violently ill with some kind of food poisoning), but none of it mattered. Watching a kite circle in the sky while walking on trails wrapping around green mountains under this gorgeous blue sky made all of that a moot point. Watching the herds of yaks lumber their way through the mountains, making new friends on the trail, seeing the world by horseback made the inconveniences into part of the adventure.

It's like that in life sometimes. You're walking to work, holding a Starbucks cup in your hand, looking for a wastebasket while you focus on your shoes. And you can go day after day like that, not noticing if it's a beautiful day, or a rainy day, or what's going on around you. And then you look up and realize how beautiful all of it really is.

The vacation wrapped up rather nicely, too. Beautiful as those sunny skies of northern Sichuan were, we were a mess by the time we got back to Chengdu. Smelly, dirty, ill, our hygienic sensibilities bruised and battered, we contemplated a decision perhaps never before made by a Peace Corps volunteer: Should we stay for an evening in the HOLIDAY INN CHENGDU? Since the mainstay hotel of travellers in Chengdu is one where you can get an economy bed for 25 kuai in a room full of assorted travellers, while the Holiday Inn is 1390 kuai per night, this was not a decision to be treated lightly. However, with a Mid-Autumn Moon Festival deal, a teacher's discount and some good, old-fashioned bargaining, the price was dropped to 600 kuai, and all six of us stayed in the room together. It was a genius decision. Hot shower, swimming and an evening of watching HBO and American news. Balm for the soul.

So after this eventful week, I'm ready to begin teaching again. And the great thing about visiting Songpan is that it reinforces in my mind how important it is to have environmental volunteers here in China. Dengguan could be beautiful, but in many ways, it's not. Giant, uncovered gutters line the streets carrying large quantities of garbage into the river. In Zigong, they're hacking down the mountain in the middle of town to make room for more buildings. You heard me right, they're actually tearing down the mountain. Every time we go by, there are about a hundred people out there with pick-axes, and a little more of the mountain disappears. We can't even see the sky here, thanks both to the natural climate and the pollution.

It's out there though. And going to Songpan, and looking up from the trail every so often to see the sky was a learning experience. I hope that wherever you are, whether you're in Boston, Chattanooga, Irvine or Middlebury, that it's a beautiful day there, too.

I hope that all of you are well. Stay safe, happy, and enjoy your autumn!

Meg