China…

Miranda has suggested I write a bit for quite some time. It has been another great Sabbath and I guess I just felt up to it today. China is quite the place. I have moved countries enough to know to expect what you don’t expect and when you get the unexpected it’s not such a surprise. I expected China to be much more China-ey. You know, lots of crazy ancient Chinese architecture, with stone buildings and upturned roof tips. Tianjin is very modern. Once in a while you can find an old temple(mostly for tourism) or other building with a Chinese flare, but mostly, the city is modern apartment/business buildings with modern lines, beveled edges, or glass balconies. There are some really cool buildings to look at. We live right in the heart of it all, on the 15 floor of a 25 story edifice. We share our location with 6 other buildings the same height. Below there is a pretty cool little gathering area with trees and water features. In the morning when Miranda and I head out on our 10 minute walk to work, there is often a group of parents and grand parents with their children all around the ages of 2,3 or 4 years old. It is good to start out the day walking by the kids each morning. I guess they like to get a bit of social interaction as most of them don’t have brothers or sisters, and will probably have a full time job when they turn 5. Because most people only have one child, there is a lot of time, energy and money spent as an investment for their future. Not too surprising I guess. Well, as it turns out, children around here are expected to work very hard in their school and other disciplines. The bonus is that on the other hand they get a lot of toys and attention.

The traffic around here is great. If you ever come to China, do it with a sense of adventure as well as a sense of humor. The intersections are often just clumps of traffic trying to push through each other. The name of the game seems to be never back down, if your not sure honk, and there is always enough room to fit between two cars. The problem with the never back down part, is when two cars need to get out of each other’s way to proceed the opposite direction, they will often just sit it out and make the other person move first. Cut and paste that mindset onto two parties and you can have some pretty funny Chinese showdowns. I have seen a few traffic jams waiting on two cars having an intersection duel with neither willing to move out of the way. Honestly, one was about 10 minutes. They have these little red motorcycle trikes that have been covered in the back to create a little passenger cockpit. After coming out of wall-mart with arms full of groceries we decided to take one the short distance home. We weren't disappointed. Miranda laughed the whole way home. It was like we were in high speed chase, only we were barely able to go 20 miles an hour, because in China the road is there for everybody. None of this your side my side stuff. We flew in front of busses, down one way streets(the wrong way) and everywhere else we could get in the way before making it home. Our driver kept looking back wondering why we were laughing so much. Probably thought we were making fun of him or something.

Like anything worth doing in life, there are sacrifices that have to be made to pay for the experience, money or whatever the gain may be. Most of the time being here in China, or when we were in Brazil, presented a fun experience each day. Something to laugh about, roll your eyes and think only in China. The experience here is different enough to learn new and exciting things each day. Sometimes though, you just wish you could smell home. For me it is the desert sage, after a summer rain, for Miranda probably the ocean breeze. Feel the air.  Be around the people that bring you the most happiness. All the things you don’t think about, yet subconsciously classify as “normality”. I have come to realize, since living so much out of country lately, that I am quite a mountain boy. This next part gets kind of weird for me… but who cares I guess. Right now its just me,the bunnies, and my wife. Tucked away in an apartment nook thousands of miles away. I miss the spirit of the earth. I have always been close to it without really knowing what I was enjoying. I ll try to explain. In Hurricane I was only a few feet away from gardens, trees or grass. I could walk bare foot in a plowed field. I could go outside and pick something to eat. Anybody who knows me knows I did all summer. I could see so far away and there was usually something to see. The rain clouds building up on pinevalley, the sun setting on timbertop. There were always birds, or chickens or some kind of animal around the house as well. On weekends I was often in the mountains, carving trails, or building ponds, fishing, hunting, camping, fourwheeling or whatever. I was(am) always a messy kid, in the mud and dirt, throwing something or building something.In contrast, in Brazil and here in China I walk to work on hard pavement all the way. My view is limited to the big buildings nearby. I am inside working, calling or typing without even knowing if it is cloudy or sunny. Sometimes I come out of the work “zone” to find it rained really hard! I didn’t even know! The disconnect seems to be really big right now between myself and everything natural, or living. Cement, metal, plastic and all the other technological barriers have got me on another planet! The weird part is when I get to thinking about this I just want to go hug a tree. Or at least climb it! Or go to a mountain stream and drink until I can’t move. Or lay in a huge pile of fall leaves. Maybe lay down in the grass and get grass stains. I make myself laugh when I think about this. Anyway, with fall in full bloom I think about this stuff a lot. I love fall. If I ever blog again I ll talk more about China. So, I have been looking everywhere for house plants. We haven’t really found any yet. I bought a couple of bunnies and they have been fun. I have had this crazy green thumb thing attack me, and without the possibility of planting anything in a yard, I finally through some beans in a paper cup and started…well I’m not sure. But it is growing and I smile when I see it. Here’s a picture.

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