It's the Little Things that Count

Written  September 15th 2015 amid the afternoon silence from 1 pm to 230 pm everyday as the entire campus takes their afternoon naps or relaxes.

It’s the little things that count. If you remember every birthday, without a Facebook, your friends will notice. If every time you take in a favor you send out a card or flowers, your friends will notice. If every time you step out the door and heads turn to survey the slender white fingers that poke out from your sweater, you notice. It’s the little things that count, and they can count for or against you.

Just under two weeks ago I moved into my new home in Tianshui, Gansu, China. A humble abode of one bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room with just enough space to work through my yoga. I love my new home, despite any deficiencies I may find in my US-China comparisons. 

[I've included a complete tour of my apartment at the end of this blog post.]

When I walk down the five flights of stairs from my apartment and step out from the stairwell, to either side of me are urban gardens. Today, on the right side green onions have just fully ripened atop their rows of mounded dirt. On the left side Gansu hot peppers alternate between green and red, sucking in the sun between rain storms, preparing to unsettle stomach everywhere. And yet just further down kohlrabi bobs about with it’s leaves like feathers and one step further mysterious slender green leaves look to imitate arugula, though I’m sure they are only a cousin of those peppery flavor-bombs. 

Just beyond the five stairwells of my building, each six floors up with two doors per floor,  an open dirt field with a concrete square offset to the far side sits dropped 5 feet below the encircling road. Roughly 30 or 40 feet by 30 or 40 feet a rotating crew of grandmas and grandpas take turn dancing with flailing arms or rackets with balls balancing atop or tai chi swords swooping about. As they dance a constant buzzing voice echos out from an undersized speaker.

The building I am in, if looking from the perspective of the photographer, would be behind me to the right.

In the morning or evening, depending on when I feel less not motivated, I turn out from my building, take a left at the dirt field, and a right at the admin building. This road takes me all the way across campus. In the morning I pass gobs of students on their way to the classrooms just down the same road. Males are with males, females are with females, and flirtatious couples are avoiding the crowds. 

In the evening the students are crisscrossing every which way with 2 liter thermoses in hand, filled with their drinkable hot water for the night and next morning. More prominent though are the young children of resident teachers zipping around on all sorts of odd contraptions; scooters with three wheels that spread apart, scooters with two wheels that never look appropriately sized, cars with six wheels and a remote control nearby, or wands that spew lights and noise to shut up the incessant nature-songs in the background. 

A few minutes takes me to the end of the road where the tall fences around the newly minted running track and artificial grass soccer field lay lonely. Occasionally a flirtatious couple avoids the crowd all the way into the middle of the field. They stick out like a pulsating sore thumb. More frequently, though, the flirtatious couples are found after I turn right at the tracks  and make it to the never-lit and “dangerous” front entrance. It wasn’t until after two full weeks that I realized when my foreign affairs department liaison said “dangerous” he meant “there are couples scattered about in every shady spot linking arms and longingly staring into each other’s eyes.” There are no available benches here for me to take a breather so I continue along my way and end up back at my front door. A seven minute loop around campus I like to make twice.

Once, when this liaison Shane,and I were standing in front of the admin building, he scoffed at a women placing her forearms on the shoulders of a man in front of her. “This is a bad habit,” he grumbled with a tone of warning. When I walk around campus and see students holding hands and hugging, Shane looks down from his high stature and shakes his head, “despicable.” When Na came to visit me for four days this voice loomed close. Incessantly, I restrained my hands; no hugs, no holding hands, no shoulder rubs or patting her back. 

Finding myself on bad terms with Shane is one of my greatest fears. He is one of the most humorous people I have met, rarely speaking without sarcasm. He convinced a fellow PCV he had studied at a college in Rochester, the PCV’s hometown, and maintained this the entire 17 hour train ride. I like stopping by his office and saying hello; a tactic recommended by our Peace Corps trainers to forge solid bonds and also since it is normal to have a rather casual relationship with co-workers in China. 

All this said, Shane is my link to getting anything done over these next two years. If something in my apartment breaks, he contacts the repair man; if I want to start a secondary project, I must pass it by him; if I want to leave the city for a night or go on vacation to Beijing to see Na at her new job, he has final say.

So, walking around town my guard is always up. I’m the foreigner and everything I do, say, or present spreads like wildfire after five years of California drought. My acquaintances are friends of friends of his and anything the foreigner does is news. I found this out when I was a little short on water and someone asked me if I was doing ok. I said I was a little tired. They noticed my dry lips and recommended I just drink more water since autumn has come with dryer air. This morning Shane stopped by to make sure I wasn’t sick. He heard and wanted to check-in, though this was an incredibly nice gesture on his part.

But little culture things like this require persistent awareness that resist habit. It was a luxury I never thought I valued so dearly; those moments where my mind could shift to thought as rote memorization took over and brushed my teeth, washed my face, and got out the door to class for me. Now every step must first drift through a conscious checklist: is the door locked? is the second door locked? Did I turn off the power strips? Nope. Unlock both doors, turn it off, lock both doors again. Oops, forgot my belt. Walk back up five flights of stairs, unlock both doors, turn it off, lock both doors again.

A crowd of students passes, their heads on swivels leaving their eyes unabashedly steady on my skin. They don’t even notice the bright orange raincoat or the bowtie. Their eyes sit directly on my face.

I pick up some fruit, peelable only, and head back to my apartment. I wash the apple skins, rinse, and peel it before eating. The bananas are easy; just peel and chomp. But mid-bite the fresh flavors fall momentarily stale as the store that just opened announces their presence with strips of hundreds of fireworks.

After taking care of some things at home I head over to the local muslim restaurant, thinking it might be cleaner due to halal rules. I ask the man at the front if I could get my dish with half potatoes and half tomato-egg. Without hesitation he shakes his head and explains… local dialect. I understand almost nothing. I smile and ask him if my understanding is correct based on a few keywords. A younger gentleman runs over to save the day and I rehash everything with him. The answer is no, I can not do that. So I order the eggs and tomato over rice dish. I ask him why they sell beer if this is a halal restaurant, he scoffs. I don't understand, I'm a foreigner. 

I take a seat on the far end of the room and look up to a big red sad face. “C.” The latest food inspection said they did not meet the guidelines for health safety and gave them the lowest rating. Recalling my conversations with locals about how unhealthy restaurant food can be with “gutter oil” and unclean water I forced down my food. I’m sure it tasted good and was mostly fine, but my fears got the better part of my taste buds. I'll I could taste was my fear.

I went home, up five floors, unlocking both doors, swapping out shoes for my house slippers, tossed out the leftovers, and collapsed on my couch.

It’s the little things that count and they’ve been wearing me down lately. Underneath all of this difference is so much beauty that I’ve seen and enjoyed before. I love it here, usually. But sometimes, I notice all the little unpleasantries, all the downsides. I fail to see the joy of a local who finally opened their own storefront, the culture of a man that can act so casual in what seems to me a rigid society, the freshness of the fruits and veges that were likely picked early that morning or the day before, the open curiosity of locals who take the time to soak up a new experience, treasuring the new sight that I am.

But that’s not the side that I’ve been seeing recently. 'New' refuses habit and demands awareness, something I wished for myself previously, but the lived experience of it has been exhausting. I’ve been giving myself an extra hour every night. That has helped.

Here is the photographic tour of my place mentioned above. I took these today.