A Lesson in Hugging

Friday morning marked our final day at the hotel; we’re all moving on and out into our host family's homes. Each of us has a sheet of paper with their names, phone numbers, and two sentences to describe our life for the next (almost) 3 months: “The host mother works in a company as an administrative staff (sic). Her son is a 15-year-old boy.” Reality: she runs her own company but the boy really is 15 and probably will be for about a year or so. But, who can say for sure? As the Peace Corps manta goes “it depends.”

Ancient Street.

I had actually just returned from lunch with Maria. We picked up some food from one of the many “C” rated restaurants around town. That’s a “C” for “didn’t pass a lot of health inspection guidelines.” It sat comfortably in my stomach as rain brushed across my don’t-shoot-me orange raincoat.

The reality of what was happening twisted my head from my neck as I watched Sarah walk past me with her new Chinese family and her next two years in suitcases. Fortunately, my host family found their way to the wrong hotel which gave me enough time to hug everyone three or four times. Rebecca (sp?), a fellow UW-Madison alumni, gives the best hugs, but Joy is my daily fix.

The first persons (yeah, that’s plural) to notice my name on my host family’s sign were everyone else. A collection of six-ten people let out in a chorus “Ben, your host mom is here!” A hand shake, some shuffling, and myself, my bags, and my bewilderment, fit together like a collection of Tetris s-blocks; it somehow all come together.

My host mom showed up in a qipao, which is a not-so-traditional traditional Chinese garment (see picture), and my host brother in an expression of I’m-done-with-this-shit. First impression: normal.

Their two story apartment is perched dominantly on the 17th floor of a high rise just a few blocks away from where the hotel was. Their door was framed with good luck charms grounded in Buddhist mythology and opened to a large rug; outside shoes next to the bathroom on the left and inside shoes next to the dinning room on the right. My Mom had new indoor shoes in front of my feet even before I could remove the 30 lbs bag from my back. I didn’t want to be rude and was pleased to discover my arms are a lot longer than I thought as I struggled getting my shoes on while my backpack toppled me here and there.

My new home.

By this point, my Mom, brother, and I were all slightly acquainted, they know what was on the sheet given me and I knew what was on the sheet given them. They got like seven sentences. Unfair. But the mom also ecstatically told me she had studied yoga for eight years, had been recently disappointingly laid off after making “a foreign company” turn successful (I would later learn she is very good at working herself out of a job), is a Buddhist, wanted me to teach her and her son meditation, wanted me to help him practice English (explicitly not in the contract), and also had a present for her son and me; for which she suddenly scurried off upstairs to grab. I took the moment to set down my bags and shake the sweat off my back.

When back down we all three took a seat on the couch and she handed her son and I a couple books; American history through literature with Chinese on the left and English on the Right. Badass.

From here things got more normal, snacks, the only English channel playing on the TV, fruit, conversations about culture, snacks, and an update about her son’s education. Damn this women loves her son. At some point tonight he would find out his grade on the zhongkao (中考) or high school entrance exam, that would determine his entire future. A good grade means entrance into a good high school which means he’ll be surrounded by other smart students and teachers with higher expectations, which further translates into a likely higher score on the gaokao (高考), which is the College entrance exam that will determine the rest of his life. Pickin’ up on the gravity yet? This ain’t Pluto, this is Jupiter.

He got a lower score than they expected and failed to get into the school they wanted.

The son and I went upstairs to get away from the stress and had a deep conversation about love. He asked me what my first love was like and we slowly worked through my entire romantic history and worked our way into how I prefer hugs over handshakes. He agreed, so we hugged. But we had a problem, he hugged like we were magnets of the same pull. So we brought it in again and we had a nice intimate moment as I explained to him how to squeeze with his arms and do so with sincerity instead of fear. Fortunately he’s a quick learner and we soon shared a wonderful hug. From there I went back downstairs to hang with our mom.

Queue contemplation on suffering, the pressures of the Chinese education system, rants on corruption, and searching thoughts for other opportunities.

We spent the next day (this morning) at a meeting with an organization that helps prepare students for studying overseas. So, yeah, that means she contemplated his future, talked with him extensively about it, found a friend that had connections to such an organization, contacted the organization, and set up a meeting for 9 am the next day. Bad ass.

This also meant I got to spend the morning with a collection of four Chinese nationals that have all studied abroad and talk about education, the successes and failures of different systems, and what makes a degree worthwhile to pursue. Conclusion: confusion.

The rest of the day was spent meeting my new extended family; cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas, and in-laws. English simply doesn’t have the words to express these relationships. Chinese has too many. I’m still not sure what I’m to call my brother and mom. But I’ve got options.

We met up at “ancient street” with the two cousins (aged 15 and 16), and one aunt and her husband. The food was already on the table so we chowed on some good food, listened to an argument over why the uncle ordered too much meat and not enough vegetarian food for me, watched as a plate of tu’dou’si (土豆丝) or thin strips of potato, roasted jalapeno-like-peppers in a sour vinegar, and an onion soup to prevent the stomach, liver, and heart from over heating in the summer altogether got splayed out before me.

From there we walked through a park filled with fresh air and green things like bamboo and water, and sat down on the docks with some tea and fish food. The three boys and I dangled our feet above the water and watched as a swarm of koi meshed together in a mad frenzy for bits of food to form a blanket of orange, white, and red with a backdrop of green water.

Then the mom and I rehashed our conversation from the night before on education, options, and this morning’s discoveries with the aunt and the two cousins.

Four hours later after struggling to catch meaning between mediocre English, mediocre standard Chinese, and incomprehensible Sichuan Chinese, or Sichuanese, the eight of us moved on to the other Aunts HOUSE (an incredibly exquisite luxury of space in China) for dinner and then went to her tea house for more tea, another rehashing of the education situation with the other aunt, and then I taught them how to play the card game Bull Shit. In pictures: