dogs peace fruits

this is the mantra on my newly acquired "chinglish" (chinese english) t-shirt, purchased at the silk market in beijing (for now we will exclude the small but true fact that the t-shirt claims to have been manufactured in korea by the crown panda company...). my friend, stone, who is a native beijinger, accompanied me for a real treasure of a week in her hometown, in which the forbidden palace was revealed to us, the temple of heaven was visible to us here on earth, and the great wall once again captivated my adoration and has most solidly become the symbol of china with which i will forever associate this wonderful place i have called home for the summer.

back to the silk market, but just for a moment. for those of you who are familiar with my fabric fetish, i can only imagine the rolling eyes and sly grins as you read these words. HOWEVER, i was remarkably well-behaved, and walked away with only one new silk brocade jacket (custom-made with green cherry blossom flowers - stunning). my (uncharacteristic) financial responsibility was due, in part, to my total inability to bargain hard and my constant gullibility and feelings of guilt every time i try to pay less than the asking price. poor stone, who was a true champion and complained not a bit as i dragged her shopping, could only giggle and shake her head at me, as i spent more on items than she would ever pay for as a native. alas, she and i both chalked this weakness up to our respective professions (she is a medical student at central south university in changsha, and i as a nursing student, may be "too kind-hearted"...?).

so, what does this retail therapy have to do with research? well, frankly, nothing, so i'll return to the real treasure of learning and exploring more of this fascinating land's culture and history.

when i transited through beijing en route home from mongolia in 2004, i was only able to spend an afternoon cruising around and seeing some important sights, such as one section of the great wall, and tiananmen square. something indeterminate gripped me then, and i felt absolutely tingly with the curiosity and interest this blink-of-an-eye visit offered. i figured i could spend a lifetime in china and still only scratch the surface. now that i have spent the summer here, i feel like i could still spend a lifetime here, but perhaps delve even deeper into what makes the middle kingdom tick.

china has a 5000-plus year history of civilization, cultural enrichment, intellectual pursuits, and agricultural cultivation. about the size of the US, much of this land, i feel, has not remained untouched by human influence. even the seemingly abandoned areas of today hide cultural relics from thousands of years ago, such as the terra cotta army of clay soldiers first unearthed by a farmer in xi'an. the more i visited sites in beijing, the more i added to my list of 'must see' places in china. perhaps not on this trip, but essential on my next trip...

china is on the brink of a global spotlight, as the olympics will arrive in just a few days. i intentionally avoided the olympic venues, as i anticipated they would be overrun with people and highly guarded. i opted for the ancient history of china, rather than the history in the making. but i certainly made observations about the impending exposure china will have to the international community. the olympics are, in a sense, china's debutante ball. all glitzed and glamorized, with a sparkly new subway system (which is so efficient, inexpensive, and marvelous), olympic volunteers traveling in herds around the city by foot, just bursting with enthusiasm and ready to help in an instant, and older adults studying english in their homes and communities in the hopes of communicating with the hoards of foreigners who will invade soon.

i'm not at all concerned about china's willingness and eagerness to welcome visitors...i am more concerned by the manner in which foreigners will receive the welcome. being a foreigner myself, i take some liberties here and will claim that some international visitors are less than grateful and courteous to our international hosts. i am certain that i fall into this category, too, sometimes, but (hopefully) infrequently. but sometimes i feel positively embarrassed by the behavior of foreigners when i am the vicinity of one who is speaking derisively of the host country, or talking so loudly that they would be audible from their overseas home, or expectant that the same facilities and comforts will be available to them at the gesture of a hand. so. there you have it. my perspective on foreigners, and how i desperately try to be as unobtrusive as possible wherever i find myself traipsing across the globe.

one more observation...i find myself attempting to quell the fierce, intense, urgent desire to bound&pounce on every...single...older...adult...i...see. i noticed this especially in beijing, as my 'purpose' there was simply to explore and relax, having completed my research and data entry in changsha (~600 surveys distributed, 3 focus groups, and data entry for each 43-item scale recorded). but everywhere i looked in beijing, older adults were visible, riding their bicycles along the street, shopping at the local vegetable market, sitting along the roadside playing cards and mah jong, practicing morning tai chi in the parks, chatting in the pavillions of the temple of heaven...and i had to exercise some serious self-restraint not to launch myself at them and say hello, and just listen to them speak about...i don't know what, since my chinese skills are non-existent...but just to encourage them to speak. ah, anthropology is looking better and better...mom and dad, you may have been right when you postulated that i would indeed go on to earn a phd, though i fought you incessantly at the time of mention.