Thursday, July 17, 2008

Namu 1

There is a box sitting to my left, a testament to when I was here three years ago. I know it was mine because it is a box for instant coffee, properly faded over time, and I am the only one in this village who drinks coffee in the morning, as I was teased and reminded as I bought a bag of instant mix this afternoon. It helps that I am sitting in the same room, in the same apartment, of the same family as I lived three years ago. Still, parts of me linger, which is simultaneously strange and exciting. In the faded red English words painted on an embroiderers door, or in the songs and games I taught to children they have now incorporated into their own, it’s if there are secret parts of me scattered all over the world, or China at least.
I could not be more pleased that I decided to return to Namu village and I cannot for the life of me remember why I was originally planning against it. If you have known me for long enough, or well enough, then you have heard of this glimpse of my life that beats stronger than almost any other time in my heart. Originally coming to do research and leaving permanently attached to this place, even if only in my heart, I have now returned for a few days to…what really? Originally, partly due to having a large sum of US dollars burning a hole in my bank account from the calendars I sold of the students here, raising money for the school before thinking of how I would actually send it to the village. Now, I realize, perhaps for one of the first times in my life, I am also coming back because this is a part of my life and I want to cultivate that aspect and see it grow within me. I say this because instead of just submerging myself into children’s games and teaching lessons, I instead spend time talking with old students, who have now reached my height, learning about their studies and their hopes and dreams as before, but now mapping the changes of their wishes as I take in their newfound heights and language acquisition. Many are too small to remember me, the strange Laowai that lived for a month in their Dai village, but the ones that do warm my heart and the visits become a cascade of memories I assumed had long been forgotten.
“Zhang Laoshi, do you remember when you took us to the river to sail the boats we made?”
“Do you remember the aiyi who taught you to dance?”
“Zhang laoshi, remember the girl who studied so well? She will now attend school in the city of Mangshi!”
And, of course, an endless supply of “Zhang laoshi, do you still remember me?”

And the amazing thing is I do, so much of it and so many memories come flooding back, I was actually able to tell the man who drove my, how to describe it, seatbelt powered open back wagon truck to the village how to get to the school, I remember pairs of siblings and whose family owns a nearby store. I notice that trees are missing and new houses are built, the color of the schools lining is no longer red and the blackboards have been replaced. This information amazes me as it does them, even if I can only remember small pieces of the small fraction of Dai I used to speak and am so awful with names that I am ashamed to try anyone’s at all. Some things I have forgotten, the way the smell of the row of pits making a bathroom wafts over the schoolyard at night, the dead heat of the evening, and the thick accents rendering much conversation impossible. And yet, it’s all there in some way or another.

So far my days have consisted of sleeping (I caught a cold, knowingly, on the overnight sleeper bus I took to Mangshi, choosing to get sick instead of inhaling stale cigarette and sweat air through the 14 hour ride), splashing through the water with two of my dearest students, being followed in packs of children under the age of seven, screaming and jumping when I take out my camera, little girls with little sisters strapped to their backs, turning away at the flash. While spending the evening with my Aiyi, one of the women who used to run the store by my school and with whom I would spend many a weekend riding a motor bike, I blew my nose and was immediately sat down by her friends, my shirt lifted up my back, my bra undone and was submitted to “gua sha” in a rather rudimentary form involving grasping and pinching my skin as if it was silly putty and rubbing my back with the grease induced bottom lip of a hairspray can. Six deep bruises adorn my right shoulder as I am told I will sleep better tonight than previously.
I have showered in a candle light room, the flickering light making the shapes of spiders on the wall glow and change their shape in size, the teacher whose house in which I stay, who I call my Namu Mother, has heated water for me to mix with the cool to pour over my body. It is skinner than before, they tell me, and my students insist my hair was prettier longer. These changes map a relationship, proving that this connection is not one merely induced by goodwill. I feel bad that I have more meal invitations than I can entertain, but I also slip into the warmth of knowing there are people here that I want to spend more time with, acknowledging my deeper relationship and ties.
I have been asked if I am married more times than I could possibly fathom. Though I am merely 24 I am told it was expected I would have been married with children by now. Everyone wants to see pictures of the husband who does not exist, of the children not yet born (or adopted), and I promise to send them as soon as it may be. I tease them that they may be waiting decades and they tease back that it is unacceptable for by then they will already be dead.
What would have happened if I hadn’t returned? Re-reading old journal entries stored thankfully on my computer (shoutout here to google desktop) I run across promises unkept to people laying scattered throughout China. I always try to mail pictures but I am told I didn’t send as many as I remembered, and I try not to promise what I know I cannot (or will not) deliver, telling the monk who said he hoped we’d meet again (in perhaps too friendly an insuation) that we shall see what the future may hold, but there are always the promises and words that slip away from you. The phrases spoken like money spent in starbucks, I will come back, I’ll see you again.
And is it now possible that I would never return? I have now learned of new lives, of marriages made and babies born. The kindergarteners with whom I used to converse with through translators and pictures now speak to me fluently about their hopes for the future and instead of being a one time apparition I have now come back, which, in itself promises to produce the same result in the future. Can I keep it? Can I not? Simeltaneously as I want to stay I am also itching to leave, wanting to continue with my research, with my life. Sad as it sounds I now know this could never be a full time calling, though in a larger sense it may be, and my old questions of working on the ground level rise up again. If they are not my life then, what is? Can the connections made in New York be deeper because there is more surrounding them, ie are my friendships brightened by language, school, internships and broadway’s glow? If so than what is real and more authentic? What came first, the love or the fulfillment?

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