Fruit Shopping and Life Thoughts

Random adventures of the day (some of these happened yesterday, when I started writing this post):

I'm going to Xi'an with my friends Mykhanh, Marytha, and Colin two weekends from now.  Us ladies, (with Colin's money and passport,) headed to the ticket office with our handy dandy travel vocabulary books and all of our train choices written down.  I'm proud of us.  Tickets are booked baby!  Between the three of us (really that means the other two) we got the tickets we wanted, with beds (we're doing overnight trains and getting sleeper beds) near each other.  Can't wait for the adventures in store!

We learned in class today about shopping words and getting fruit from a fruit stand, and part of our homework was to go find a fruit stand and get the prices on a few different items.  There's a fruit stand literally 10 feet away from the gate to my apartment building, and since I walk by it everyday (and stopped a few times to get things) I've wanted to get to know the people who run it at least to the limited extent that I can.  I felt bad for asking how much all the things were, so I bought a satsuma (which come individually wrapped, nope I don't get it either, though it does give you a place to put the peel) to make up for my duo shao qian-ing.  (Ing added by me).  I also decided to walk down the opposite side of the street that I do.  Its so good to change perspective!  This was the smallest change to my normal routine, yet it was awesome to go exploring somewhere I see everyday but I've never really been to.

So then today, we went and with our teacher and practiced "shopping" at little stores near campus.  We had to ask about different things and how much they cost if they had them etc.  In this adventure, I ate dragonfruit, two different types of jinbing (fried dough with stuff in it), peach candy, some sort of flower tea that I'm not totally sure what it is, and I have an apple that is supposed to taste like an apple sitting in my bag.  Then Irene and I split a yam from a street vendor when we were walking to the bus.

A huge part of my experience thus far has involved not only learning about China but learning about others and myself.  It has come from me realizing that things are not always what I assumed they were, from seeing with new eyes and having new perspectives.  In my program, we all come from different schools and backgrounds, from the Ivy Leagues to big state schools to small private schools (go Hope!) and everything in between.  Family background and geography is different.  Some of my classmates went to private boarding high schools.  Yet, we all chose to come to China.  Even if you come here to mess around, you still have to do work, cuz heck, you're learning Chinese!  For whatever reason, something about this unfathomably populated, puzzle language, polluted, historic, undefinable country intrigued us.  That's something we have in common, and something that I think sets this crew apart.  We're in it together.

But I digress.  I didn't expect that all of these people would become my China family, and I love them so much.  My view of community was defined by the Hope community, which is an incredibly stellar community.  But Hope is a very this-is-the-way-we-do-things place.  And I think that many of those cultural values and habits are a good thing, and I love many of the traditions that we have.  I could not have asked for a better place to spend "the best four years of my life."  But its only one way.  Community can look like laughter and conversation on a smokey night at the cafe (and there's no LJ's coffee to be the beverage of choice), it can look like loading up a train and going somewhere for the weekend, it can look like the frantic, laughter filled, chopstick shoveling, character cramming lunches, in building relationships in spite of a language pledge.  Its in sharing this incredibly unique experience- seeking adventure, and learning lots.

And yet, God is still God, no matter what, no matter where, no matter who.  The biggest culture shock has been that I'm not in an environment like the one that I've had for the past two and half years from school to camp and Kenya.  That not everyone is like me.  And He loves them just as He loves me.  And I love them too (not that I didn't think these things, I'm just realizing it in a very beautiful way!).  And because of that I see myself differently too.  And in that, I'm learning more about who I am, what I think is right and wrong, what I believe, and where I'm going to fit into the world.  My worldview is being seriously redefined as I have to make decisions for myself, out of the context of a community to make them for me or tell me what I should or shouldn't be doing.  And in the midst of all of this I have never been more certain of who God is, because He's the only thing that doesn't change.