Lonely seaweed and what I've learned (so far)

Many of the media volunteers went to dinner after work at Laoshan the other night. One of our new local friends, Eric, who also attends the CUC, gave a few of us Chinese names. He looked at our first and last names to conjure up similar-sounding pronunciations. Andrea Thomas is Tong An-Li (the family name goes before the given name in China). Traci's means "Shiny Green Thing" and one of our bosses Amy's means "Tree Blowing Weeds Eyebrow." Mine, Han Luo Rui, was explained like this:

"You know when there is a lot of seaweed, and it slowly descends in the water? The weeds are tangled. It is a very emotional situation; lonely and beautiful."

He went on to say a famous Chinese poet once wrote about it. My name's characters, however, are so complicated that Li, our other new friend, laughed, and Raul, a manager at Laoshan, couldn't read it. Too bad. I was looking forward to getting a huge tattoo on my lower back (sarcasm). But I appreciated Eric taking the time to give me a poetic name. A lot of locals have English names, so I wanted a Chinese name; I just keep forgetting how to pronounce it. I'm excited we're finally forming relationships with students here. Before this, we really haven't been able to make any friends from China because of the language issue. I got to discuss the Chinese mainland music scene with Eric, something I've been itching to hear about. His favorite band is Muse as well. Excellent taste transcends a lot of things, I suppose.

It's just before 6 a.m. in Beijing right now. The sky is blue with a few random strokes of white cloud. The outline of dark green mountains is visible just beyond the edge of the city. A flock of small black birds fly above the skyline. Tomorrow I will have been in China for a month. Except for a sick day and a grouchy subway ride, I have loved every second of this country, which is probably clear from the happy-go-lucky nature of my blog. But all the things I write are sincere.

A lot of people have asked me about China, but not what I've learned from it so far. Being on the other side of the world makes you proud of your home. I love America. I'm proud every time I answer "May-Guah" (Mandarin for America) to the question, "Where are you from?" I love diversity, the blues, brave people, loud voices, East Coast attitude, Southern hospitality, American political debates, the right to vote, Wall Street, agriculture, the first amendment, regional accents, deep dish, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, Purdue vs. IU, Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, travel, fireworks, rap, country, habeas corpus, skyscrapers, Hollywood, unions, business owners, corporations, mom and pops, beaches, mountains, swamps, snow, deserts, the Sox, the Cubs, anybody but the Patriots, and apple pie, warmed, no cheese, ice cream on the side.

I adore the crazy, hodge podge, history-shaping country I call home. But what I love is a country, a hunk of land, not a bubble. Young Americans need to realize that beyond our borders and gorgeous shores there is more than just Mexico and Canada. There is a whole world, a whole community of countries filled with people who are going to affect the United States' future. There are people sitting in Germany and Australia who know more about the presidential race than many Americans. Unless there's a catastrophic plane crash, many Americans don't hear about other parts of the globe. We talk about education and how we need to keep up with the rest of the world, but the lack of a global perspective contributes to "falling behind." Just because we've blazed trails before doesn't mean other countries won't and aren't already doing it, and stubbornly sitting alone in the corner at the "world party" isn't going to help our vitality. We have problems to fix at home, but what happens abroad is going to affect those problems and how we fix them.

This isn't a grim outlook, because we're smart, and we're capable; we just need to open our window and see how the neighbors are doing sometime.