Repost of my first Beijing post (retrieved)

May 11, 2009

 

Back in China after being away for almost two years, and I’m amazed at how little things have changed.  I don’t know what I was expecting:  Beijing still dressed up for the Olympics?  But once I left the fancy schmancy new airport (impressive, and shiny!), I was struck again by the familiar earthiness of this city, even in Wangfujing where we were staying.  It’s springtime here, and the weather is much like it was in Philadelphia when I left:  cloudy skies, threatening rain;  coolish evenings and mornings; warmish afternoons, with the air moist and heavy.  There is dust everywhere, under my nails and in the corners of my eyes.  Buildings being chai-ed and still newer construction (will this city ever rest?); there is a Starbucks on seemingly every corner; and I still saw jianbing (what Matt Bartels calls “Egg-McMaos”) sold outside the Summer Palace.

 

Feeling some sadness about leaving the city I never really said goodbye to, for a city I’m still not in love with.  And it’s hard to be here without my little family.  So many things conjure them up for me, in unexpected moments:  eating local yogurt street side in little ivory-colored ceramic jars and remembering the girls begging for these treats whenever we passed them; passing the bookstores in Wangfujing and remembering book shopping with Jazz on our 10^th anniversary; passing through a toll booth and remembering waiting there countless time for my receipt, Dan Zanes playing, the girls secured in their car seats as they sucked on tic-tacs purchased from Jenny Lou’s market. 

 

But this visit I’m traveling in a tour bus on roads landscaped with my past. We took the Badaling Expressway on the way from the Wall to the Summer Palace, and passed our old exit home, Xiao Ying.  Then veered onto the 5^th Ring Road and far to the right I could see the old apartment complex we used to live in, unmistakable in its Romper-Roomish glory: Shangdi Jiayuan!  It’s been a dance at times between the seduction of nostalgia and the desire, and need, to be here, now, with my students. 

 

I’m loving being here again, and with this particular group of Widener students and faculty.  Three of the faculty, including the Dean of social work, were here last year.  But none of the students have ever been to China before, and what they know about China they have learned almost exclusively from the courses I’ve added to the Widener University curriculum this year.  They are doing me proud! Before leading them over to Tiananmen yesterday morning, I huddled them together in our hotel lobby and asked, “What are we going to see?  What’s historically significant about this place?”  One of them said, “Let’s start with May Fourth….” (1919, not Spring 1989), and another added, “That was the Tiananmen gate, but not the square.”  Hao haizi! Besides the perverse delight I get from seeing my interests mirrored back in my students, I am loving seeing this world through their fresh eyes and insights. Check out the photos from our time in Beijing….in future blogs I’ll write more about the content of our group visit.