introspection

I. Vignettes

a)
CN is always moving. People flow in and out of every space, so that there is no one spot that is empty for long. On the bus, unlike in America, people know to move all the way to the back and take advantage of every nook and cranny between bodies. A couple days ago, I watched a boy work his way to exit through a packed bus (bodies packed like a deck of cards). He made himself skinnier somehow, walking sideways and turning his head to the side, his back and cheek rubbing against a wall of bodies.

b)
The lady I’m staying with is always on the move, too. She eats over the sink, never waits for the stoplight, always walks with a destination. She’s in her 50s and sometimes she only wears a shirt and underpants in the apartment. She’s not eccentric – it’s culture. Americans are sex-crazed, but we are prim, too. In CN, girls can undress in the same room. A body is simply a body here.

c)
My boss is young and sharp. He could talk about any subject – movies, wine, GREs, wars, the government. He on top of what’s happening in the world. He’s jaded, too. He used to be a member of the Party, but dropped out ten years ago. “I can’t take the shit they talk about in those mandatory meetings.” But he is laid-back and accommodating, too. He watched “The Departed” on his computer, and asks me if I have seen it before. He treats the interns out to lunch.

d)
During the Spring Festival, there are small shops on the streets with stacks and stacks of red boxes and multicolored designs on them. Inside these boxes are fireworks. Lighting fireworks is a pastime for teenagers, adults, and even families. But children shouldn’t light the big ones that shoot up over 10 stories high. The ones that shoot out of the tubes are more fitting for them. You hold the tube in your hand and a light whizzes out, like a shooting star, making a whistling sound. I can hear the fireworks go off sporadically in the night. Sometimes they are followed by car alarms. They are set off in building courtyards, on the sidewalk, in the street - anywhere that has a clear space, so you have to be careful where you walk. When H and I were walking to the shopping center, she got hit by a pebble from one of the explosions 20 yards away.


II. Thoughts

Today, I feel like a ghost. I only want to flow through the crowds and slip quietly into the crevices that open up between people. I wake up homesick – it’s the first time I dream of people at home. I dream that I had gone back home and my brother had been seriously sick, and when he told me about it he cried because it had been so hard. And then I searched the house, but I couldn’t find Skye.

After work, I don’t want to go home for dinner because I don’t want Aiyi to feel obligated to cook for me. I try to find a food court, not a restaurant, because I want minimal social interaction. Because social interaction means talking, and ghosts don’t talk.

The enemy attacks when you’re most weak. I’m scared of so many things. I’m scared of getting lost. Of getting run over by a car. Of not being knowledgeable and sharp like my co-workers. I’m scared of buying running shoes myself, even though I’m dying to go running. I’m scared of Aiyi and causing her so much trouble. I’m scared that maybe I am weak for being homesick so soon. I’m scared of buying vegetables. I’m scared of opening my mouth.

But G never wastes any hurt. I offer this homesickness and fear to him as well! Through this, I’ll learn to depend on him all the more. And he will give me life as I overcome. He will give me humility when I am forced to ask for help. He will give me his strength when I am weak. He will give me compassion for people far away from home. He will give me faith against fear.

The enemy says, “What have you to offer to CN? You’re so small and timid. What can you possibly offer to G if you’re afraid to buy vegetables by yourself? Did G really call you or did you come because you wanted adventure or because it was easy?”

And I don’t know if I have a heart for CN at all. I don’t feel like Hudson Taylor, who would die to see CN’s people receive G. And neither do I have A’s single-mindedness in witnessing to his co-workers.

But they tell me a heart for CN begins with a heart for G.

And what does it mean to be “called” anyway? We’re all called if we’re part of the family, no matter where we are. It’s no different following G here than following G in the States. Love Him with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself (whether your neighbor is a 50 year old lady from BJ, or your 18 year old dorm-mate from San Jose.)

What do any of us have to offer anyway? We don’t have anything, only what G gives us. I’m scared but I’m willing. My hands are empty, but they’re open. I have no eloquent words, only the knowledge of how the Cross changed my life and how it can change yours, too.