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 around the country on whose land I trod. I found a world different in culture but united in cause and intention. The same core concerns that troubled me in the states troubled my new Chinese friends. The difference was, they saw only the charred grass beyond the fence.

At this point, I’ve decided to abstain from the 24-hour conversation. Telling a close friend of mine how I felt, he nodded “静观其变,” sit quietly and watch it change.


And from beyond the fence, here I sit on concrete floor with white walls watching and listening, quietly.

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 26, 2017 at 6:49 AM

    Ben, One day I hope to sit quietly with you to share those changes we see and hear the reports on the ground beneath all the fences imagined and real.

    ReplyDelete

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