Friday, January 9, 2009
Monkeys!
For your viewing pleasure while I am away, I thought I would post a few pictures of the monkeys I saw in Hainan. Hainan is an island province in the South China Sea to the Southwest of my province, Guangdong. I spent 4 days in Sanya, the southern most tip of the island, lying on the beach and soaking up the sun. One day though my friends and I went to "monkey island" where there is an entire tourism industry based on the monkeys that live there. You take a cable car onto the island and into the park where the monkeys live. There were monkeys everywhere, and they are definitely not afraid of people. They also had several shows involving trained monkeys. Sadly the monkey motorcycle show was cancelled because the monkeys were "too tired" that day, but we did see monkey comedians and monkey circus performers. We also quickly discovered why our tickets cautioned us not to bring food into the park. You may not see the monkey when you whip our your peanuts or fruit snacks, but inevitably a monkey appears out of nowhere and almost takes you out while snatching the coveted snack from your hands. So be forewarned next time you are on an island with monkeys: they are not as cute and innocent as they look especially when food is involved. Enjoy!
Just in Time to Say Goodbye
I’d like to start out apologizing for the blog hiatus. Many things have happened since my last entry—Christmas, New Years, a trip with one of my teachers to pick strawberries, a trip to Hainan for a quick beach vacation. I will do my best to post about these things at some point, but for now let me just say that this hiatus began because I could not figure out what I wanted to say about Christmas. I started and restarted to write a blog, but my mind just couldn’t narrow down the millions of things I wanted to say. I did write the following three paragraphs a week before Christmas:
What does it take to get into the Christmas spirit? I see lights and Christmas trees everywhere. There are carols over the loudspeakers in the malls. There are Christmas cards for sale, candy canes for sale, and Santa Claus hats for sale. Yet I feel nothing when I see these things. I yearn for the warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach that usually comes around Christmas. My attempts at sipping hot chocolate and sucking on candy canes have been in vain. My stomach still feels empty. I bought Christmas cards for my coworkers, attended a White Elephant party, and played Christmas games in my classrooms—still nothing.
In spite of all of the kitschy Christmas décor and small attempts at gift giving, I can’t forget that I am in a communist country whose official religion is atheism and whose workers do not even get one day off for Christmas. I can’t help but realize that what is missing most from these attempts at Christmas is a real understanding of what Christmas really means. They’ve copied the capitalist mantra well: promote Christmas to promote spending money. I’ve had a few skeptical friends at home rant about how Christmas in nothing more than the plaything of the big corporations to suck money from the average American’s pocketbooks. Maybe we do spend too much money buying gifts, having parties, and putting up decorations, but I don’t think it really matters because Christmas is much deeper than that. If Christmas really is just an economic ploy to get people to spend money, then I would easily be able to get into the Christmas mood here. The skeptics and the Chinese are missing the point.
Christmas is not just about the Christmas tree. It is the memories of years of dads putting up the Christmas tree with moms giving instructions “a little to the left, no right,” and kids waiting impatiently to put the ornaments on the tree. And they just aren’t any ornaments, they are the ornaments you made as a child, the ones you bought on a vacation to Mexico, and the ones you fought the crowd for the day after Thanksgiving. There is no pulse behind Christmas here, it is just a façade. Many have heard of Santa, but they don’t know what it means to grow up believing that Santa is going to fly to your house on a magical sleigh with magical reindeer and leave presents for you in the middle of the night. They’ve never baked cookies and poured a glass of milk for Santa to snack on when he visits. Their understand Christmas like a child understands a book after only looking at the pictures. They don’t know the story, just what it looks like.
I never finished this entry because as the week went on I began to feel that this entry was a little hostile towards the Chinese. It’s true that the Chinese don’t understand Christmas in the same way I understand Christmas, but they do understand that it is an important holiday for me. It may not have felt like Christmas at the time, but as I’ve looked back on my Christmas here in China, it was filled with as much warmth as I could have asked for at home.
A few of my co-workers and students gave me gifts, and many more wished me a Merry Christmas. Sure we had a lame Christmas Eve party in a hotel, and Christmas day I ate 4 Yuan dumplings instead of turkey; but I knew without the Christmas tree and the turkey that there were people out there who loved me. My family sent me a Christmas package filled with gifts, which I opened Christmas morning with them via Skype. Sadly I couldn’t share their sausage balls and coffee for breakfast, but it was nice nonetheless. Just the other day, I received another package from all of my runner friends in Birmingham filled with Christmas presents and cards. The timing was perfect because I had had time to reflect on what it means to have people at home who are willing to send you a package from the other side of the world. It was like Christmas a second time.
Having Christmas away from home in a foreign country that doesn’t celebrate it really made me realize that at its core Christmas is nothing without family and friends. I vaguely knew this before, but now I know it for sure. You could put up the best Christmas decorations in the world, but it will never feel like Christmas unless you have someone to share it with.
Similarly, my time here in China means so much more to me when I have people like you to share it with. I’ve heard from experienced travelers that one of the hardest things about traveling is trying to convey you experiences to your friends and family. I know you may never fully grasp my experience here, but even a small part is better than nothing. I may have grown up in America in an ideological environment built on individualism and self-reliance, but I believe humans are naturally dependent on one another. We need self-expression and individual goals, but we also need someone to share our experiences with. This concept reminds me of a riddle: If a tree falls in a forest when no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Maybe it does, but I think the answer is that it doesn’t matter. It only matters if someone is there to hear it. So thank you for hearing me so that it does matter.
That said, for the next month you may not hear much from me. I will be traveling in Southeast Asia with a few friends since we have vacation time for Chinese New Year. Our trip begins in southern Thailand. We are flying into Bangkok and then heading to the beach town of Phuket. We plan to spend about a week in Thailand, and then heading by train down into Malaysia where we will spend another week. Finally we will head to Indonesia, mainly the island of Java. I have few details to offer for now, since we are planning this trip as we go. All I know is that beaches, jungles, temples, and volcanoes will be involved, and I cannot wait! I will do my best to find internet cafes along the way to make brief updates. Until then…
What does it take to get into the Christmas spirit? I see lights and Christmas trees everywhere. There are carols over the loudspeakers in the malls. There are Christmas cards for sale, candy canes for sale, and Santa Claus hats for sale. Yet I feel nothing when I see these things. I yearn for the warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach that usually comes around Christmas. My attempts at sipping hot chocolate and sucking on candy canes have been in vain. My stomach still feels empty. I bought Christmas cards for my coworkers, attended a White Elephant party, and played Christmas games in my classrooms—still nothing.
In spite of all of the kitschy Christmas décor and small attempts at gift giving, I can’t forget that I am in a communist country whose official religion is atheism and whose workers do not even get one day off for Christmas. I can’t help but realize that what is missing most from these attempts at Christmas is a real understanding of what Christmas really means. They’ve copied the capitalist mantra well: promote Christmas to promote spending money. I’ve had a few skeptical friends at home rant about how Christmas in nothing more than the plaything of the big corporations to suck money from the average American’s pocketbooks. Maybe we do spend too much money buying gifts, having parties, and putting up decorations, but I don’t think it really matters because Christmas is much deeper than that. If Christmas really is just an economic ploy to get people to spend money, then I would easily be able to get into the Christmas mood here. The skeptics and the Chinese are missing the point.
Christmas is not just about the Christmas tree. It is the memories of years of dads putting up the Christmas tree with moms giving instructions “a little to the left, no right,” and kids waiting impatiently to put the ornaments on the tree. And they just aren’t any ornaments, they are the ornaments you made as a child, the ones you bought on a vacation to Mexico, and the ones you fought the crowd for the day after Thanksgiving. There is no pulse behind Christmas here, it is just a façade. Many have heard of Santa, but they don’t know what it means to grow up believing that Santa is going to fly to your house on a magical sleigh with magical reindeer and leave presents for you in the middle of the night. They’ve never baked cookies and poured a glass of milk for Santa to snack on when he visits. Their understand Christmas like a child understands a book after only looking at the pictures. They don’t know the story, just what it looks like.
I never finished this entry because as the week went on I began to feel that this entry was a little hostile towards the Chinese. It’s true that the Chinese don’t understand Christmas in the same way I understand Christmas, but they do understand that it is an important holiday for me. It may not have felt like Christmas at the time, but as I’ve looked back on my Christmas here in China, it was filled with as much warmth as I could have asked for at home.
A few of my co-workers and students gave me gifts, and many more wished me a Merry Christmas. Sure we had a lame Christmas Eve party in a hotel, and Christmas day I ate 4 Yuan dumplings instead of turkey; but I knew without the Christmas tree and the turkey that there were people out there who loved me. My family sent me a Christmas package filled with gifts, which I opened Christmas morning with them via Skype. Sadly I couldn’t share their sausage balls and coffee for breakfast, but it was nice nonetheless. Just the other day, I received another package from all of my runner friends in Birmingham filled with Christmas presents and cards. The timing was perfect because I had had time to reflect on what it means to have people at home who are willing to send you a package from the other side of the world. It was like Christmas a second time.
Having Christmas away from home in a foreign country that doesn’t celebrate it really made me realize that at its core Christmas is nothing without family and friends. I vaguely knew this before, but now I know it for sure. You could put up the best Christmas decorations in the world, but it will never feel like Christmas unless you have someone to share it with.
Similarly, my time here in China means so much more to me when I have people like you to share it with. I’ve heard from experienced travelers that one of the hardest things about traveling is trying to convey you experiences to your friends and family. I know you may never fully grasp my experience here, but even a small part is better than nothing. I may have grown up in America in an ideological environment built on individualism and self-reliance, but I believe humans are naturally dependent on one another. We need self-expression and individual goals, but we also need someone to share our experiences with. This concept reminds me of a riddle: If a tree falls in a forest when no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Maybe it does, but I think the answer is that it doesn’t matter. It only matters if someone is there to hear it. So thank you for hearing me so that it does matter.
That said, for the next month you may not hear much from me. I will be traveling in Southeast Asia with a few friends since we have vacation time for Chinese New Year. Our trip begins in southern Thailand. We are flying into Bangkok and then heading to the beach town of Phuket. We plan to spend about a week in Thailand, and then heading by train down into Malaysia where we will spend another week. Finally we will head to Indonesia, mainly the island of Java. I have few details to offer for now, since we are planning this trip as we go. All I know is that beaches, jungles, temples, and volcanoes will be involved, and I cannot wait! I will do my best to find internet cafes along the way to make brief updates. Until then…
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