Missing These People

Two months ago today I left Xiamen behind and returned to my safe and sheltered life in California. So many lingering memories, and still a few blog posts that I want to put in writing. Mostly it's these faces that I'm missing!

My last breakfast with these two lovely ladies before the taxi whisked teary-eyed me away. Missing our fruit salad, oatmeal and yogurt breakfast regimen. And of course missing Kynza and Christine who bring so much joy to my life. They are valiantly continuing on with life in China, and making impressive strides at learning Chinese!

The five young women who Christine works with were such a big part of my adventure! Talking with them about their lives, getting to meet their families and their friends, sharing meals, outings, and adventures with them were highlights of my three months in Xiamen.  Not sure how I would have coped without going to them daily for advice -- where to buy chicken, how to make sure you're on the right train, when to wear a jacket, where to find clean toilets! Thank you Sandy, Eida, Sunny, Jinna, and Michelle for such a generous, warm welcome to your country. So many memories to treasure -- haircuts with Sunny's cousin, crepes with Jinna, Dehua ceramics with Sandy, Golden Lake with the whole team, karaoke, and oh how I miss lunch time at the office!

One last picture with Ting Shian, AKA "the cooker," in her clean kitchen. Missing the sweet smile and the very Chinese kitchen. How pale and how tall I feel!

I cooked my first Chinese meal for my family last week, and it was a success! Their favorite was chicken with sugar peas, ginger, and some nice Chinese chili paste I found.

Christine often talks about how God answered her prayers and led her to our apartment that was so much nicer than anything else she had seen. I am of course thankful along with her, and loved the roominess and all the amenities down to the dish sterilizer. About six weeks into my stay, I discovered our apartment had an added blessing for me -- the owner wanted to be friends! We met when she had lunch at our house, and from then on she treated me like a special guest in her country. She graciously took me out to see the sites of Xiamen, took me on a day trip to the tulous, introduced me to her friends, invited me into her home, and learned how to do instantaneous translation on her iPad so she could communicate with me. Building a friendship with someone you don't share a language with is a rewarding challenge. Because Linda is from the north of China, she's an expert at making dumplings -- one of my favorite Chinese foods. I followed her around her tiny kitchen while she made these, and created a recipe for myself that works! Actually, I still haven't tried making my own dough and rolling it out like she does, but that will come. Her ten-year-old son Jack LOVES dumplings!

Usually when Friday night rolls around, I'm missing English Corner. The picture shows my group on the last Friday night I was there. Several marine engineering students, and we had a lively discussion about why bad things happen...

I met Mandy at English Corner way back in September, and we have vowed to keep in touch through telephone and Internet.We went for a manicure the night before I left... Both got red nails for Christmas.

And James came with us -- his first time to come and watch manicures!! He's a guy I met at English Corner, and it was a fun chance for me to chat with him. Who knew in China young men often come watch girlfriends get a manicure!

Mandy introduced me to Annie and David. So many memories of fun dinners and great discussions with the three of them. Love how they are willing to share their dreams and think big about the future! We spent hours talking  about marriage, how to build a business from the ground up, priorities, families. The three of them have so much hope when they think about their futures.

They came to our house for dinner, and we  introduced them to popcorn. You can find packaged popcorn in China, but they'd never seen kernels pop up in the air and come down puffy white. So fun to watch their delight.

My three months in Xiamen would not have been the same without Marilyn Phillips! She and her husband Dave have been teaching English in Xiamen for several years, and our second week in Xiamen we discovered that they lived a short 5-minute walk from us. They introduced us to English Corner, and Marilyn just took me under her wing. She taught me how to take the 951 bus without getting lost. We got pedicures together, went shopping together, shared meals -- all things that are not easy to do by yourself when you've just landed in China. She shared her love for the Chinese church with me -- her smile when she talks about Chinese Christians is just heart warming. And she introduced me to one of my favorite hangouts... The fabric market! As she describes it, "If color gives you a lift, this is the place to go if ever you're having a down day."

Love how bikers and cars are intermingled with sewing machines and fabric!

For me there was something comforting and cheery about sharing smiles with a few friendly souls I met up with most every day as I walked Xiamen. Even though our communication never went much beyond smiles because of the language barrier, there were three people who I looked forward to finding in their expected location each day, and I miss those friendly encounters!

The first was a street sweeper. Street sweeping is such an integral part of my visual impression of Xiamen. This city has thousands of street sweepers I'm sure! I encountered dozens of them on a daily basis. They were such a novelty to me with their brooms made of branches, their pointy hats, and their rickety carts. I'm sure I made a nuisance of myself with my camera more than once! But with one of them I managed to forged seeds of a friendship. When we first arrived in Xiamen, I walked with Kynza to and from her school bus stop a couple times a day, and this guy noticed that I kept walking up and down "his" street. Since he didn't have many other (no other?) non-Asians walking up and down his street, his curiosity got the better of him. So one day he smiled at me and made some hand signals to show he was amused with all my trips up and down his street... From then on I always stopped to greet him when I passed. He often signaled me to sit down and drink tea with him. He had a whole little set up with a tea kettle and a couple plastic chairs. I always declined the tea, but I did sit a spell with him on occasion, and since we couldn't communicate with words, I showed him pictures of my family on my phone. The day before I left, I got these fellow street sweepers to take my picture with my buddy. Chinese street sweepers almost always wear hats and masks to protect them from sun and pollution, but aren't these the cutest ones you've ever seen?
The one-mile trek from our apartment to the grocery store was doable even on the sunniest of days, but getting back home with bags of groceries required some kind of transportation. Taxis refused customers who only wanted to go a mile, so the only real option was the "cart lady." There were actually lots of carts that took passengers on short hauls, and all of them drove like maniacs. But I became partial to one lady who was fun and happy -- always madly waving to attract my attention and get my business. I was always happy to see her, because she knew where I lived, and in spite of her outlandish way of driving, somehow I trusted her to get me home. She put on her helmet, and then we would speed off, horn constantly blaring to let everyone know she was coming, driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid a U-turn, making left turns when the light was red, and driving on the sidewalk when that seemed like a better choice. Once she made a U-turn in the middle of the road, drove against traffic, then hopped out and left me facing oncoming traffic because she'd seen a 50 yuan bill in the road and she wanted to snatch it! Maybe it's because of all the adventures I had with her that by the time I left I felt like we had bonded. Of course I miss her, because there is nothing anywhere close to this crazy in California!

Our apartment is inside a gated area with one or two guards always sitting in this little shelter at the gate. One of the guards always had a smile for me, and just for fun I started addressing him in English with a friendly "Hello" every time I went by. Within a few weeks, he began to respond "Hello" and it almost felt like we were having a conversation! After he mastered hello, I added "How are you?" when I greeted him. And a some point, he begin responding, "How are you?" I never could get him to understand that he should respond "Fine" before asking me "How are you?" But in any case I was always happy to see him, and for lack of being able to share conversation, sometimes I would show him what I had in my grocery bags! I think he enjoyed seeing what strange things foreigners might eat. So I'm missing his friendly smile to welcome me home. My automatic garage door opener just doesn't have the same warmth!

So these are the faces that made Xiamen an extraordinary venture, and I won't soon forget them. Of course I'd love to see each one of them sometime soon, but for right now I do our best to stay in touch using We Chat, a Chinese texting app that translates Chinese to English for me. Indeed the world is smaller than I thought -- and maybe I need to be learning some Chinese!