Two Homes, One World, and a Bridge

November 7, 2017

I believe an adventure is born in those who experience it, but lives in those with whom it is shared. On June 14^th, I left Westfield, Wisconsin, and the United States searching in China as a Peace Corps Volunteer for that adventure, a day now nearly five months in the past, but my mind often returns to Westfield, as I think about my past, my present, and how the two coincide.

During the last few days, I’ve been refiguring and completing the mental calculations to determine the time at home in Westfield after the clocks changed for Daylight Savings Time, a phenomenon that doesn’t exist in single time-zone China. In calculating the time difference between my US home and my Chinese home, now 14 hours, I was once again reminded of how seemingly disconnected our two worlds might seem – I accomplish most of my day while many of you are asleep, just as many of your lives spark into action well after the sun has set on that same day in Wuwei, the small (by Chinese standards) city in northwest China where I’ll be for my two years of volunteer service.

Yet, as soon as I have that thought, I realize that many of my students see me as a bridge, perhaps even their only bridge, between these two worlds – your world, and their world. From my vantage point straddling these two worlds, with one foot confidently resting upon my experiences, culture and knowledge of my life in the US, and another tentatively seeking a toehold in the culture, traditions, and expectations of my life in China, I see that there are many parallels that draw our two communities closer in spirit than in geography. And it is through this connection that I wish to share with you a few thoughts and experiences I’ve had during my first months as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China.

With the passage of fall, and the arrival of winter, I expected that the memories of family activities and seasonal wonders would be an emotional struggle, not the salve with which I frequently overcome nostalgia, homesickness and longings of things I never imagined I’d miss (yes, I’m talking about cheese, chili, and cinnamon).

I’ve found familiar comforts in my foreign country this fall, and I attribute this in large part to my wonderfully welcoming community of students here in Wuwei, and the cultural exchange that can occur from seemingly simple pieces of my – our – culture that I have taken for granted.

At my home in Westfield, we have a few apple trees, and though they might not ever have the greatest harvest or the sweetest flavor, I fondly remember picking the apples from the trees and feeding them to the horse, or from an orchard and making applesauce with my family. I thought this would be a memory that would draw me away from my life in China, yet it has brought me closer to my community and students. Here in Wuwei, I just had a student add me on WeChat (main messaging and everything-you-need-in-life smartphone app in China), and ask me, “Teacher, are you OK? These days I don't see you in the canteen.” I responded that she didn’t need to worry: I was OK, but out of town for a few days. This was touching in itself, but then she replied with two pictures of apple trees from her hometown hundreds of kilometers away, each loaded with bright-red apples that evoked even brighter flashbacks of home. “Have you ever head of Pingliang? The apples in this area are very famous.” I messaged back that I had heard this, receiving a few smiley-face emojis in return, followed by “sorry, teacher, some slow delivery, you will have to wait for a few days,” bookended with another smiley face. Writing and sharing this, I still find it incredible, even after every act of kindness and hospitality I receive here as a teacher in Wuwei, that a student from one of the poorest provinces in China would send apples across the country – for me, a foreign teacher that she had just met a few weeks ago.