Sit Quietly and Watch it Change
A year and a half into my service as a Peace Corps China volunteer demands a certain amount of reflection. Uncomfortably, I’m finding putting forth the diligence to digest so many conflicting experiences requires more patience than I have to offer. I glance over the troubled days of my first semester, still hot to the touch. I ponder the early days of my growing confidence as a teacher that mark the second semester. And now, more recently, I shudder at the thought of my third semester, pleasant and stable yet still rocking as foreign, western winds carry bombs with burning fuses. For the last five months I’ve had to continuously find way to defuse hot topic after hot topic, each and every one politically sensitive. It was this that most marked my last semester in China. It’s strange because as I left the once United States of America, I had in my mind an expectation that I’d be entering the political realm of China. I thought the political topics of the day would revolve arou