Typhoon

A couple of days ago, we found out there would be a typhoon blowing into Harbin. It had been blowing over Korea and was heading our way. When I woke up that morning, I saw a heavy rainstorm from my 20th floor balcony. It didn't look different from any other storm. We looked down to see people struggling with their umbrellas and getting quite soaked in spite of themselves. What we also saw were trees blown over and either hitting cars or just missing them.


One of the foreign teachers that live on our floor said that water was gushing into his apartment through the balcony window (probably because of that side of the building was getting the brunt; where our side just had a great view).

And so it blowed and rained and filled our little moat with water and seemed to just clean the air all over. I was glad I didn't have to go out in it!

The next morning was a bright and beautiful day, but it was anything but peaceful. Those poor trees that had been planted as large sticks probably just a few years ago were being punished for their lack of root systems. Their branches were being cut off with chain saws and the trunks were being "replanted" to have another go at being trees.

They tend to move trees around like potted plants. They bring them in as thick sticks with a small bulb of roots, stick them in the ground and let the leaves develop. Then, when they are ready to move them again, they simply just cut the branches off and move them again.

I won't say I understand the way they treat the trees in China, but it works somehow.

Who's who at HEU

About a month ago, we got the names of our new teammates for this coming fall. We were excited that another family would be joining us. They have two small children about Olivia and Joel's age, and I thought about how awesome that is. We've loved having the Taylors on our team and being able to love their children and our kids all play together. In addition to the family coming, we are having two single girls who have been in China a year already. Another win for us! :)

Then came the surprise right before we left for the summer. We are not getting one new family but two! Wow! The second family also has two kids around our kids ages! Yeah! The family was supposed to be at another school in Harbin, but for some reason that didn't work out and our school "won" the family. ;) So, out of the nine children from our organization that will be in our city, SIX of those are at our school. AMAZING and wonderful.

As the Fergusons and Wylies are packing up their lives, I am sure they are being flooded with emotions and questions. Some of those I can answer; some I cannot. I do know that the One who called them to China is faithful to help them transition and thrive there. Please lift them up.

Even though Lauren and Kellie have been in China, moving to HEU is still quite and adjustment for them. They are spending the summer with their families and friends and I am sure trying to squeeze every moment and memory they can out of it before returning to China. Please remember them as well.

We are excited about the year ahead and welcome these ten people into the Harbin family with open arms!

In America

We’re here is the States again for another summer of fellowship with family and friends. It is always nice to see people and catch up, but it also feels like we have missed so much about American culture while we were in China. New words and phrases have popped up that we don’t understand and can’t make them fit into our understanding of how those words make sense. We are amazed by how many times people say, “I’m sorry” even though they are three feet away from us and nowhere close to being  in our way. Not so in China where you bump into people all the time and your head may be in someone’s armpit on the bus!

And all the choices! I was going to just run in and get milk and ice-cream yesterday. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, any combination of the three, coffee, Bunny tracks, Moose tracks, choc. chip cookie dough, mocha almond fudge, light, regular, fat free, half fat free, less sugar, no added sugar, natural sugar…. It took me forever to choose and then I saw I could get a buy one get one free with the store card. That made it twice as difficult because then I had to choose TWO! Olivia just said, “Just get one and let’s go.” Little did she know, while sitting under the cart, how hard that was to do!  I ended up with cookies and cream and a coffee brownie something or other by the way.

Recently, I was struck by how so many workers in America are white. I know that sounds funny.  I was driving through a grocery store parking lot and saw a tall white man collecting and organizing the buggies. I thought to myself how everyone that I normally see doing that kind of work is Chinese. The white population in Harbin is mostly made up of teachers, students or businessmen.

I was picking up my niece from volleyball practice the other day and noticed all the diversity of people.  Whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians were all in the same parking lot and all very much American. That is one of the joys of America for me. Sometimes I get tired of standing out in China and being stared at by all the passers-by. In America, I am just another face in the crowd. But is that my goal? Should I be trying to hide in the crowd? Now, I don’t think I need to toot my horn or draw attention to myself, but I should aim for the Spirit that is in me to be a fragrance to others around me. (2 Corinthians 2).  One reason being pointed at and “noticed” bothers me so much is that it is drawing attention to me.  I really hate that, but when the attention is being draw to Christ, then that is something to relish and rejoice in, don’t you agree?

So, here we are with AMERICA again, and I’m looking forward to seeing how SHE and I have changed since we were last together.

Change

From age five to eighteen, I lived in the same community, went to school and graduated with the same people I started kindergarten with, lived by both sets of grandparents, never saw many changes (not too uncommon in a small place) and liked my comfort zone of a life. College was my first move and I only changed roommates once because my first roommate moved away. I liked the normal staying normal. I loved being comfortable with it all and everyone I knew.

Then I went to China where common mottos are "Nothing ever stays the same" and "Nothing is as it seems" and "Take a picture because it might not be there tomorrow" and the like. My first five years in China, I had five completely different teams, moved yearly (one of those years I moved twice). After those initial China years, I took a one year home leave where I married Steve and my "home" and "normal" changed forever. I found myself having to share time between South Carolina and Illinois while making my home in China with a husband.

This is our sixth year in China as a married couple. We have lived in two cities and moved twice in both places. In Tonghua, we moved down the hill from the school after Olivia was born. In Harbin, we moved to the apartment next door to our first one here. All together in China, I have had 43 different teammates (not including 20 different classmates my two years in language school or Steve and my children).  I didn't have any continuing teammates until three years ago when the Taylor's and Dan stayed and everyone else left. This past year, our entire team (minus Dan) stayed the same and nobody new came. It was bliss!

Now, we are on the verge of a total turn-over. All our current teammates will leave and six new people will be added to the 43 above.

I hate change. I hate how it makes my stomach churn and my heart want to beat out of my chest. I hate having to adjust and learn how to do it all over again from the beginning.

At the same time, I have learned how to embrace the changes in my life and see them as refinement. You see, when I lived in the comfort of nothing ever changing, I didn't do that much changing myself. People didn't point out the junk because either they didn't notice it or they knew me "too well to say anything". Sad.

The 43+ blessings I have had in my life over the past twelve years have been used to chip away the ugly, bring out more of the junk that I would rather hide, and expose the stuff that needed dealing with. Many of them took time to get to know me; some didn't. Many of them still speak into my life even though we are no longer teammates; some don't. Regardless of how long we were together, I am forever changed by how the loving and just Father used them to show me that change is really a good thing even when it is hard in the moment.

Sweet moments

Recently, Olivia has been going to preschool nearly everyday. May 1st is a holiday in China, and there will be a performance (as there usually are on such occasions). So, her teachers have asked that she come everyday to prepare for said performance. She has come home singing some cute little songs and really enjoying being there. She has even asked to stay all day a few times!

Yesterday, before I went to pick up little 石美华 (shi mei hua is Olivia's Chinese name) I went to the market to buy some things. I grabbed a strawberry soymilk that they make at the market and headed on over to her school. When she came down and I gave her the drink, she looked up at me with big smile and exclaimed, "That's just what I was thinking about!" Made my heart leap!

We had to go back to the market because one seller had given me one too many sheets of paper and I needed to pay her for it. Inside the market, there are these picture booths that make what we call "sticky pictures". Olivia wanted to take some pictures for Steve. After paying the paper lady, we took some pictures. It was a great way to build a memory and have fun with Olivia.

The walk home was a sweet one and she told me a little about her day. I enjoy these moments out and about with Olivia. I treasure them and know they won't last forever. As parents know, not every moment is so sweet, but boy when they are!!

下次见！ See ya' later!

Just a little something for fun.

Here's a poem written anonymously that might be fun to read.

I'm no expert, yes 'tis true

Though I may look very different from you.

A Foreign Expert Card doesn't make me an expert you see

anymore than a toothpick would make me a tree

I'm just an oaf bumbling along

Doing my best; usually getting it wrong

I'm I'm an expert at anything this would be true

I'm an expert in knowing less than you

So teach me your culture, ways and your land

I can learn if your patient and hold tight to my hand

I may speak English and hold a degree

But what you can offer a classroom could never teach me

I must be a learner not an an expert of all.

So I'll sit down and let you stand tall.

~anonymous

See ya' next time! 下次见！

Who do I go to for what?

Today, I want to write about power distance. This might be the hardest post yet since this is the topic I still don't fully understand. It is a little harder, but I can talk about how we end up adjusting to the different structure where we live and work. 

America is a small power distance culture. This means that people usually don't like difference status (ie. they like equality) and like to share power between many bosses. Employees expect to be asked their opinions about the topics they know about. The "perfect" boss lets everyone have a say and then makes his decisions while having those opinions in mind. Bosses or anyone in authority is usually given respect when they have "earned" it.

China is a large power distance culture; therefore, inequality of status is welcomed and expected. There is probably one boss and a large range of salaries. Employees expect to be told what to do by the boss, and the "perfect" boss makes all the decisions and then that decision gets passed down the line. Bosses are given a great deal of respect because of their position. 

I explained it in this way to my students using a picture. Let me try to recreate that here:

In the first picture, you see the one boss way up at the top. Let's say he makes the decision about when the vacation will be. That is then passed down the line from level to level until it reaches us way at the bottom. All that passing takes time, so we might not know the answer to this question until much time has passed because the person that we deal with directly has either not heard yet or the person making the decisions has not decided yet. 

When a question is going the other direction, we must follow the opposite pattern. I ask the person directly above me (in our case it is the foreign affairs officer) who asks her boss (the head of the foreign affairs office) who asks his boss who asks his boss (so on and so forth for many levels) until it reaches whoever can answer the question or make the decision. 

Then the answer must work its way back down the ladder until it reaches us again. It is inappropriate to go over someone's head. By now, we are not sure if they are stalling or trying to avoid our question. The truth is, there is a lot of asking going on, one real decision maker who is very busy making a lot of other decisions as well. It can become quite an ordeal.

Patience must reign in these situations because time is NOT on our side. 

Another way this affects our lives is when decisions are made that we don't like or don't understand. We live in a building that houses only foreign students and teachers. Ideally, we would live in Chinese apartments with local neighbors, but that is not our decision. Evidently in another city there was something that happened in a building similar to ours and some foreigners got hurt. The result: monthly and irregular inspections in our building. "What does that mean?" you may ask. The hall must be cleared, meaning all our shoes, bikes and the kids play things must be squeezed into our apartments. 

"They" (whoever they are) come along and look at the hall, see it is clear and go away. Meanwhile, we have shoes all in the entry of our apartment and scooters in the middle of the living room. After the allotted "inspection" time is over, we all put our shoes and scooters back in the hall and continue with our lives. 

Why do we have to do this? Because the big leader up there somewhere said we did. What should be our response to things like this? According to my student, "You should just calm down and do it." I think that is good advice. 

We, the Americans, "solve" all the major problems in the world by telling each other our opinions since nobody on top is asking us. We talk about having play ground equipment near our building for all the kids living here; we talk about breaking down walls so that more light can get into our living rooms; we talk about being allowed to live in "real" Chinese housing so that we can get to know more local neighbors.... the list goes on for miles really. Who asks us for these opinions? Nobody because that is not how things are done here, and that is fine and good. 

What I have stressed to my students is that neither system is better than the other. Things just work differently in both places and we learn to appreciate their uniqueness. Do I wish people would ask me my opinion more? Certainly! Are they going to? Probably not. Is that okay? It has to be. 

You see, when I willingly moved into this culture, I had to change and adapt. There is a Chinese saying that says, “The taller the bamboo grows, the lower it bends.” In order to grow, you must be willing to sway. In order to thrive in this culture, I must continue to grow in flexibility.

Thanks for reading.

See ya' next time. 下次见！