XIV

In February I took a somewhat spontaneous trip back to the United States to see loved ones. It was the first time I had left China in the last six months, a two week break for the Spring Festival / Chinese New Year (新年快乐!) and coincidentally the day I left was exactly six months from the day I arrived, an anniversary of sorts. To be honest, I haven't really missed being in the United States. I mean that in a matter of fact way that may be more of a reflection of my relationship to language than anything else. Meaning, I don't tend to miss places in that I don't often think about places; past, present, or future. Instead I think about people, conversations, obligations, desires, and more "social" kinds of things. And indeed, this was what I came back to do, e.g. to see people. Maybe this is true for everyone, and the word "home" or a specific place, e.g. Wisconsin, the U.S., etc. is simply a synecdoche for something too complex to get at in one pass with words. Regardless, I went and came back, and now there's eight weeks left of classes (nine minus the week that just passed).

A kind of test that I use towards understanding how I "really" feel about something is contrast: I pay attention to what it feels like to not have something that I've gotten used to. Do I miss them when they're gone? Do I think about it when it's not there? If so, this "inductive" kind of reasoning can tell me things that are too bodily for my conscious mind to pick up.  By this criteria then, I haven't missed being in the United States in terms of things like food, transportation, media (thanks VPN!), apartment, and shopping things like corner stores and pants. Further, the people I've been away from I've been in touch with. Not just through email, but through video on WeChat and Skype. In some cases I've been in more touch with some folks while I've been in China than I was furiously trying to finish my PhD in Indiana, and of course in some cases I've been less in touch, specifically with my rapidly growing nieces and nephews which bothers me more than anything else. At any rate, the big question however is not how I feel about the United States, but how it felt to come back to China, e.g. a test of how much I have settled in. I wondered then even before I left, what will it feel like to come back? 

There were times when I lived in San Francisco and other cosmopolitan places, where after a holiday with family and friends, I would fly back and think to myself, why do I live here? The short answer was always because that's where I have a job, yet in those instances, there was rarely someone to meet me at the airport, and the long ride over public transportation would be met with an empty apartment and no food in the refrigerator :( . I'm sorry to to dramatize, but all that is to say, coming back to China felt like coming back to work in a good way. A driver from school picked me up from the Pudong Shanghai airport, and though my refrigerator was empty, and my apartment a bit cold, it felt like I was going where I needed to be. What we're building at DKU is exciting to be a part of, and for the first time in my working life I feel like I have real responsibilities. China does not feel like "home," however I cannot think of a place that I'd rather be in that I cannot think of a place where I'm integrated into the community as I am here. This pivot to China then, has for the most part been successful in its early stages. My Chinese sucks and I have a lot to learn about being here, but I do not feel, most times, the kind of alienated foreignness that makes me question my life choices. Thus, so far so good. 

[A note on this blog: You may have noticed that my postings have slowed down. Two reasons: 1) In the academic writing course that I'm teaching at present we have a class blog (two actually, I have two classes). Thus, I've been writing in another blog, sometimes twice a week, which uses up some of my weekly writing gas. I want to write a little bit about monolinguals in the coming weeks in this blog so I will post again quite soon, however the ideas that occur throughout the week that I nurture towards the ends of blog posts have been oriented towards the class blog. Or in other words, I've been thinking more about academic writing more than foreignness lately. 2) I've been furiously trying to finish an article for publication, and though I am very close, especially after this two week break, this also takes up some of my writing bandwidth. So, FYI, that's what's going on. Unless otherwise noted, this blog is an on-going project.]