China Gray

“Wàiguó rén shì huàirén” Prior to Peace Corps, I often my measured success in terms of big projects that took weeks or months to plan just to produce one successful event. While a Peace Corps Volunteer, I’ve discovered that some of the most impactful and groundbreaking successes happen in a single serendipitous moment. These moments, however, only happen after developing a supportive environment for success to occur within. I’ve come to see site integration as a process of developing these supportive circumstances so that I can do the work I’m here to do: help Chinese people better understand what it means to be American. On an average day, with average, dry, sunny, summer weather, walking my regular route towards the cafeteria, I crossed paths with my foreign affairs officer, Shane. He was walking in the same direction as me, so I started walking next to him. He likes jokes, so I didn’t say hello. Instead, I shadowed him, six inches from his left shoulder. On his right, his

Part 3: Characters After she left, Matt and I continued our conversation and talked well into the night. We woke the next day long after the sun had risen. We packed up camp, downed some water, and set off to a secluded temple a little bit further up the road. It was a temple that Matt had been to before and that volunteers before him had been to before.             The trail itself was simple. A deep forest and high peaks surrounded us in every direction, blocking any view down the mountain. Arriving at the monastery, we stepped into a small courtyard; to our right was a narrow abode with a dirt floor and a hunched over man tending to a small fire and a pot of water. He sat buried in the room’s shadows with the sparse outlines of a large bed nestled in the abode’s back corner.             To our left, a series of Bodhisattva statues sat only slightly lit from indirect sunlight, their chins glowing gold while the eyes sat in darkness. Beside the building that housed the statues

Down and In             After hiking up to the peak and enjoying the view from the monastery, we wanted to head back down the mountain part way for the path to our campground. The walk down was quick, and once again we skipped the monasteries off to the side in hope of getting to the campground before sunset.             Back at the trailhead, we could see a long bus in the distance, and we ran. Matt feared it might be the last one down. Walking would take hours. To our luck, someone on the bus noticed the two foreigners running and the bus stopped a dozen meters further down the road. We got on and went to the few remaining seats in the back of the bus, sat down, and the bus headed out. Three minutes later, it stopped.             We didn’t know the cause of it, but a long stretch of cars stretched out beyond our gaze. Down the road, we could see a group of spectators forming, but we couldn’t see what they were forming around. All the signs of disaster up ahead. My head immedia

            I woke up in a bed not my own ; one that stretched beyond the reach of both my arms and legs. After rolling left to right to stretch my tense and aching IT bands, I made the journey to the edge of the bed and finally to my day’s clothes. I slipped on a lightweight, breathable, gray Patagonia shirt and a pair of zip-off khaki pant s. The scent of yesterday’s sweat kissed my nose . I pulled the belt firmly and folded the waistline beneath it. I stepped on his scale, waited for the reading, and stepped off again. 55 kg (121 lbs). I’ve lost almost 10 pounds since coming to China.             The bed, the room, and the scale all belonged to Matt, another Peace Corps Volunteer serving in one of the smallest PC China sites: Longnan ( 陇南 ) in southern Gansu. With a population of 2.5 million and a sparse 250 people per square mile, it’s hidden in a mountain valley and inaccessible by both plane and train. The bus ride was a constant uphill journey. Despite being a two-lane r

One year of teaching in China just came and went with the suddenness of a few congratulatory text messages and nostalgic pictures. The arbitrary mark in my service, while brief, was still notable. I thought back on the past year and enjoyed recognizing all of seen, learned, and experienced. The depth of my foreignness and the breadth of my ignorance of been constant breeding grounds for life lessons. The most important of which was recognizing the hazy borders of the plane on which I stand.             Toward the end of last semester, I took the time to write out a description of my student’s lives. I wrote it as an outsider. I saw so much and understood so little. I had to deduce intentions and explanations according to perceived patterns. Looking back, and with an understanding derived as much from conversation with my students as from those observations, I see the fault lines of my own prejudice—deep canyons that not only form the borders of my world view, but also hold tremendou