Where is Home?

“Where is home?”

(This post is inspired from a TEDTalk by Pico Iyer. http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home )

For a long time, ‘home’ was just a place for me. At the same time, the idea of ‘home’ was ever-changing. When I moved back and forth from NY to Florida as a child, for a long time Florida was my ‘home’. When I moved out of home (with my family) and to college, I called my dorm room ‘home’. Then, when I moved to India for 3 months, I called the smallest village at the end of Gujarat my ‘home’. Whenever I visited my two long-time friends, Vanessa and Krystel, I also called their places, ‘home.’ Where is home?

Then I learned, home is anywhere there are people you love. It’s true. The people I love are in so many different places. When I am with these people, I feel so comfortable, welcomed, cared for and completely adored. The deep friendships I have created and fostered over time have also allowed me to adopt their families. I am eternally grateful for this privilege. It’s by having families welcome me into their homes and their lives that I have learned to hug, kiss, love and laugh. People are what make homes, but people are what break homes, too. This, I’ve seen and learned from time and time again.

Home for me comes in many different shapes and sizes. Sometimes it’s grand, tall, warm and welcoming. Sometimes, it’s dark, scary, isolated and mean. “Home is where the heart is,” something I’ve probably read in every Chicken Soup for the Soul book. It’s true. However, I’ve come to realize that home is also within myself. The home I’m beginning to build within myself is not done yet. There are moments when I think I have built a good, solid foundation and I am ready to move onto the next level. Then there are moments when I am flooded with worry, doubt, and anxiety only to have to begin, again. What I’ve realized is that if you can’t sit in yourself-with all your demons, joys, experiences, accomplishments and failures, how can you find a home in anything else?

Pico Iyer said, “Home isn’t just the place where you were born, it’s also the place where you become yourself.” When I talk about going back to NY, I rarely say, “I can’t wait to go home.” I don’t say this because my new home is China, but because China and my experience here have influenced great change in me. In fact, the idea of going back to NY, a place I’ve called ‘home’ for most of my life, freaks me out. China is where I learned about myself; my capabilities for success, my coping mechanisms for failing, it is where the sound of my laugh changed. It’s where I know my neighbors and say ‘hello’ to the children who scurry up the stairs after school. Home has become a place where I dance around in my underwear to soca/chutney music at 12 in the morning, or cry from the exhaustion of having diarrhea for a straight month.

Iyer ended his talk with, “Home isn’t just a place where you sleep, but it’s also where you stand.” Living on my own, learning what I have and understanding that I have more learning to do, has allowed me to stand. Even if standing is a result of my dear friends and mom supporting me, or if it’s because I am standing today on my own, it’s all adding building blocks to the home with which I am building within myself. This is the true place of ‘home’ for me.

                  As my students say, “Welcome you to my home.”

What living abroad for a year has taught me...

If I looked back a year or two ago, I’d say I wouldn’t be surprised at where I am now. I have always wanted to live abroad, I’ve always wanted to be a part of the program I am involved with, and I am a go-getter for my dreams, so here I am. Proud, feeling accomplished, and exhausted, this is what living abroad for a year has taught me.

1.           When I lived abroad for three months in a village in Gujarat, India, I thought it would be all peaches and cream. I mean, I had been to India twice before and had seen “everything” from the metropolises to cow-dung streets, but living those 3 months in India was a different story. I had no idea how to go with the flow and I was simply tired of getting things done through Gujarat’s bureaucratic system. Now, I can finally say: I have become much better at going with the flow. My good-ole’ friends reading this might be thinking, “Yeah, right. Her middle name is ‘over-think’.” Don’t be so down, my friends, it still is. The up-side is I am not the same “over-thinker” I was a year ago. Now, I am more like Holy sh*t, I have to get this done now, but it’s okay if I have to wait longer for it to happen. That’s the problem with some us who come from the States, or at least, New York, we expect everything to happen 1-2-3- quick and easy. Yeah, China just isn’t like that sometimes. Everything happens when it needs to or when it feels like it wants to happen, and these days I am finally sort of-okay with just sitting down and waiting.
2.        I have been blessed to have some great friends who have stood by me at my best times and my flaky times. Man, was I a flake. Plan something with me on Monday for Saturday and then Saturday rolls around and for some “odd” reason, I cancel. I canceled plans frequently and for two main reasons: I was not spontaneous, so there was no calling me last minute and saying “Hey, let’s go out for drinks!” because that just wasn’t my style. Two, I lived at home with my family and I did not want to get into the conversation of “Felicia, do you think this is a hotel? You could just come and go when you want?” Therefore, as a 22, 23 year old young lady, I asked permission to leave the house. If I didn’t want to ask because I felt nervous or I felt I felt like I went out “too much” (meaning only once that week), I just thought of what my mom would say if I did go out, so “No” is what I heard in my head and what I said out loud.  Living on my own has taught me to un-flake.  I gladly say yes to last minute invitations, invitations so last minute I just jump out of bed, get dressed, and head on over to where I need to be. I could never imagine myself doing this in the States.
3.         It’s not easy living and growing up in New York City, the key location for fashion and looks. Not only is growing up in NYC a little bit of a challenge for a short, curvy, Indian woman, but developing your own style while watching television, reading magazines, and still living at home with your parents makes all that 10 times harder. I am confident enough to admit that I was definitely very self-conscious. I have grown up most of my life hearing how fat I was from various relatives, who were quite fat themselves, that I wore baggy clothes all the time. I have also have never gone to an event-or walked out the door-without someone mentioning how short I am. These two things and many other continuous reminders of my imperfections never really allowed me to develop a self-awareness of what I thought I really looked like.  Living on my own, in general, has allowed me to create my own style, feel comfortable, and actually walk past a mirror and smile at how great I look. Granted, I still have a ways to go, but I am reaching the point of deep appreciation for my curves, my height, my jelly-belly, and my smile. No one can make you appreciate your self-worth but yourself.
4.            There are days when I just do not want to do anything. I do not want to lesson plan, I do not want to work out, and I do not want to make any lists. There are days when I prolong procrastination to the point where I will get up at 6 in the morning to lesson plan for my class that starts at 8. I had no sense of discipline, but I had whole lot of dreams. Nothing was happening for the future because I barely wanted to get up for work-study in college. I have met my fair share of people here who are so disciplined, nothing shakes them out of their routine. I have come to admire this quality so much that I, too, am trying to be as disciplined in my life as possible. When I say, “disciplined,” I mean, I do what I say. If I am going to work out today, I work out, if I am not going to eat gluten for two weeks, I do not eat gluten. Doing what I say, whether it’s big or small, makes me more successful in my daily and future life. It’s not as easy as it looks, believe me, I’ve failed plenty of times and I am still failing, but the difference is that this time I get up and start over, again and again.
5.             Ever since high school, I have felt that the bigger my social-circle was, the better and happier I would feel. While living abroad, my circle has become significantly smaller. I have quickly learned to weed out who has made the conscious efforts to keep in contact with me and who hasn’t. I have learned who I want to make the conscious efforts to keep in contact with and those who I won’t be talking to outside of “liking” their Facebook posts. My guidance counselor in high school once said to me, “By the time you become a full-grown adult, you’ll be able to count your real friends on one hand and have some fingers left over.” Well, I don’t think I am a “full-grown” adult (yet), I am so glad I can still count on the fingers (friends and family) who have helped living abroad much easier.  As my friend, Keith once said and sang, “I am glad I got Feifei’s golden ticket.” I’m glad, too.
6.         I think the things that make us happy nowadays are short lived. We are happy when we are “liked” by people we may or may not have ever met, happy when we get something we want, or eat something just because it’s available and we crave it. The happiness I have received living abroad is one where I look at my daily life, the wonderful students I teach, and the great people I have met and I feel eternally happy-deep down in my heart. This happiness was found by being vulnerable and allowing myself to experience a culture and its people in ways I never imagined I would. Vulnerability allowed me to open up a whole new space within me to dare myself and do things, say things, and really develop my own way of life.  
7.         Studying at AU, I learned what it really means to gain experience teaching. I do not believe that an “experienced” teacher is one who has 1-3 years of experience. However, although I have only have 2 years of teaching experience, I have learned to value what I know and be open to learning and experiencing different teaching techniques/methods. I am a very different teacher here in China than I would be back home in New York. For one thing, I teach English as a language in China, which is the main difference from teaching English literature in New York. Neither is easy to teach, both take time to learn and master and I have a long way to go to master either one.
8.        Making a difference is hard. It’s not easy to understand or figure out how you can make a difference somewhere for someone. I want to change the world-for the better-for the good. I now understand that changing the world means simply-helping at least one person. It could be someone you’ve never met before, someone you see in your classroom, or when you go to the market every week, but helping someone means you created a domino effect. I am definitely certain that I want a future where I am helping people. Teaching is a wonderful profession and I will continue it wherever I go.
9.       You can’t have it all. I have been struggling with the idea that women can’t have it all. I think that we end up sacrificing something, at home or in our career. I want to have both and it’s the first time in my life where I am at the point where I can happily admit I want a husband and family one day. Yet, at 25, I am still thinking it is impossible; not with my traveling and starting social entrepreneurship projects, or teaching. I will have to sacrifice things and I am willing to do that, but for how long and at what price? These are questions I am beginning to ask myself and I hope one day I can find an answer, but for now, I am happy I can admit that I want both.

I have learned so much about myself this past year and I am glad I finally have time to reflect on it and build upon myself and my future. I am excited to see what the next year has in store for me. I am already beginning new chapters I never thought I would while living abroad. I am grateful for the continuous support I receive from family, friends, colleagues, and students. Finally, I am grateful for pushing myself through everything I didn’t think I could do or get through. Here, I am and boy, am I happy! 

The Beat of the Drum Goes On

            The sound of a drum can be heard from miles away. It signifies a joyous moment in the Indian culture where a celebration takes place. We knock drums for the celebration of life, prosperity, engagement, and marriage. Tonight, the drums beat pulsated through the west auditorium at my school and it was a sound that we felt through our hearts.

            This year’s “Wonderful Night Show” was one of our foreign teacher’s last production. Daniel Chen has been teaching at my school for 5 years and has proudly said, “This is my paradise.” Having lived in China for over 12 years, he has moved from school to school, place to place, but chose Neijiang as his last “hurrah.” I am sure glad he did. When I first met Daniel, it was at our favorite, local restaurant, “Big Dish,” or as he liked to call it, “Hot Momma.” If I could describe Daniel, it would definitely be energetic. Why? Maybe it’s because for a 55ish year old? man, he has the energy of a 25 year old. Sometimes, even I became a little too much “popo” (grandma) in comparison to his energy. Daniel grew up in Singapore to Chinese parents. He knows English and Chinese fluently and can even throw up a few “sala” (jerk) slangs in Hindi! I was definitely surprised when he told me “sala pilo” (drink, jerk!) one day at a formal banquet!

            After suffering from continuous gout the whole semester, he officially-and formally-decided to retire teaching in China and head back home to Singapore. When he declared this, no one really took him seriously because he said last year was going to be his “last year” at our school. It was only until he sent in his formal paperwork did we all believe him. Daniel has worked hard and dedicated everything from a spare room at his apartment to thousands of yuan towards his students. With his elaborate stories, potty mouth attitude, and a smoke in hand, I’ve always seen him as a giver. For this years “Wonderful Night,” Daniel gave not only his money, but his undeniable energy towards directing a 100+ student show. He thought of every aspect of the show and as much as he complained, cursed, shouted and sweated, the show became literally one of the most “wonderful nights” at our school.

            We started auditions for the show around the end of March, beginning of April, and after countless of auditions for singers, actors, and dancers, we picked amazing-passionate students who loved the art of performing. I had volunteered to choreograph an Indian dance, but had no idea of the work and energy it would take to do it. I was quickly aware when I ended up auditioning about 50 dancers for just 6 places. After much deliberation and the thankful support from my co-partner, Sonia, another foreign teacher at my school, we finally found 6 lovely ladies who stood out from the crowd.

            We compiled our schedules to meet 3 times a week for an hour and a half, found dance space, picked a song within a week and finally began rehearsals. I am a dancer that likes to dance to music with a lot of beat and rhythm. As much as I love slower versions of Indian dance, I think fast-paced dances bring a lot of energy and pizzazz to any performance. Therefore, I couldn’t pass up “Nagada Saang Dhol,” a song dedicated to the beat/sound of the drum. I wanted to show the motion of knocking a drum without actually having one on stage because we didn’t have time to make props and couldn’t recruit any male dancers to actually hit drums. All the dance movements ended up being strong and powerful as if there was a drum we were hitting at all times.

            When it came to ordering costumes, we turned to no other than Taobao, the Chinese version of maybe Amazon/Ebay. You can find anything on Taoboa from butter and cheese to a boyfriend. Yes, you read that correctly. Amazon/Ebay need to get on that. The costumes we found were as close to “Indian looking” as we could get without crossing the line to too revealing and inappropriate. Luckily, we found a great deal for a red and black costume for about 40 yuan. Hallelujah. When I gave all our sizes to Daniel, who then ordered and paid for all the costumes, he ended up ordering the wrong sizes for most of the group. This was a blessing in disguise because if he would have ordered all the sizes we would have given him originally, half of us would not be able to fit in our costumes and the other half would have been swallowed by theirs. In the end, we all looked like gypsies, but it’s okay!

            The day of the show for me, did not start well. I have been suffering by a mysterious bacterial infection for 4 weeks, so sometimes I spend my nights bloated and uncomfortable. Of course, my infection chose the night before the show to act up. Heading over to our final rehearsal, I felt fine. I wanted to be as helpful to Daniel as possible, who literally had to say, “I’m gonna smoke outside and them I’m gonna yell at these kids because they are not listening!” After about an hour and still rehearsing the second act, I started to feel trouble in my stomach. Students ran around me as they blew up balloons, applied make-up, worked on stage-direction, and all I could do was hold my bloated stomach in pain. Before I knew it, I was up to rehearse with my group and I had to stop dancing mid-way because of the unbearable pain I felt.  Worried and completely anxious, I ran home to see if medicine and rehydration salts could save me from wanting to crawl up into a ball all night. Thankfully, it did, but it also left me rushing to apply the same make-up on every group member to keep up with time. I can’t explain how much the support from my friends cheering me on via WeChat and my awesome co-dance partner and jiejie (older sister), Sonia, helped me relax and move forward.

            Looking the part of a dancer is easy. Stage make-up (check), costume, sort of intact (check), hair did (check), but actually finding the passion and letting it resonate through you and onto the audience, that’s something not everyone has. Look, as a teacher, there is only as much as I can teach and so much I can do to help draw passion out of my students. I hope and assume that every teacher wants that moment where they look out at their students and think, “Damn, I did it. I taught them that and they learned it, remembered it, loved it and enjoyed it.” I had that moment. I had that moment and I could not stop feeling as if I was on top of the world for it. I am so proud of each and every students’ performance and I am so incredibly proud of my group. It’s not easy to hear instruction in English and dance to music in a completely different language you’ve never heard before, but my ladies did it. We were on point, we were strong and passionate and there is nothing more that I could have asked from them. They came and they delivered.

            The other day, a great friend of mine said to me: “What will you do to make your time in China fruitful? If you look back in 10 years, you don’t want to feel like you wasted your time.” Teaching about my culture (American and Indian), really working hard towards something with my students, learning from them as they learn from me, is not only my something fruitful, but it’s my something unforgettable. Most importantly, I have come to recognize myself in the reflections of my students. I keep saying to myself, “I can’t believe I just choreographed that dance. I can’t believe I danced like that.” You know what, I do believe it-I knew I was capable of this all along, I just never had the opportune time to bring it out into the open. I am so grateful that “Wonderful Night” allowed me to do it.

            Daniel has handed the “Wonderful Night” torch to me for next year. He has truly become a part of my experience here in the best of ways. Hopefully with continuous support from my new staff, I can help make the beat of the drum go on…

A Long, Over-Due Update.

Before I began my journey in China I promised myself that I would keep a weekly blog about all my adventures. At first, I was doing all right but now my blogs have been written in word documents on my computer and never posted online. Below is an update of what’s been going on since I last posted:

Spring Festival/Winter Break (Chinese New Year):

 This was an amazing experience. Five of my girlfriends and I took a bold trip to Yunnan (south of China). We saw four of Yunnan’s most popular cities and made incredible memories everywhere we went. Chinese New Year was not what I expected. I thought I would see people dancing in dragon costumes and huge parades going down the street, but instead things were low key in the city I was in, Dali, Yunnan. The most traditional way to celebrate Chinese New Year is to light fire-crackers on the Eve of the New Year while watching the “Spring Festival Gala.” You can say this is almost the equivalent to New Years Eve show in Times Square, Manhattan. The next day, everyone goes to their relative’s home and they eat and rest all day. I think that’s a perfect way to celebrate any new year!

Highlight: Two day hike on the Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hu Tiao Xia). Most amazing and physically/mentally straining thing I’ve ever done. Check out more info. about the Gorge here: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/yunnan/lijiang/tiger.htm

New Semester:

 There was not much of a transition from my long vacation to the beginning of the spring semester. I have 8 classes a week as opposed to 6 a week. Now, this does not sound like a lot, but when you add this to 4 secondary projects, grading, and lesson planning-it definitely became a lot. Along with my 8 writing freshman writing classes, I also have:

English Corner: 1 hour, once a week, students meet me in the school square and they practice oral English. I almost always have games/different activities. This ends up being another prep. along with my 8  classes.

Public Radio Show: 45 minutes, once a week .This is usually one of the highlights of my week because I get to finally site down for the week, talk, and play awesome music. My site-mate and I try to have different topics every week. We speak in English and play American music that most of our students and city folk haven’t heard of outside of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce.

Dance Exercise Class: 1 hour, once a week. Another highlight of my week. Those of you who know me very well understand my passion for dance. This class is similar to Zumba; high cardio dancing/exercising. I also take time to teach hip-hop and Indian dance in the class.

Indian Dance Performance: 1-2 hours, three times a week. End of the year show. I auditioned about 50 students and had to only pick 6! This was tough, but I love the group I have and I can’t wait until our performance. I just finished choreographing the whole dance. For those of you who are (or aren’t) familiar with Indian dance, the song is- Nagada Saang Dhol, YouTube it! The song is about 4 minutes long and I am glad I had my friend cut it because we would probably pass out dancing to this song for 4 minutes-high intensity cardio!

Women’s Mentorship Program: 3 hours, twice a week. My women’s group has a huge event coming up called the “Nu Women’s Summit.” The volunteers and I are combining 3 schools’ women’s groups together at one location. It is a chance for all for students to travel, meet other students, and learn about women in the world. Right now, I am preparing the students who are attending to create poster-projects around the theme: Independent Young Women. Lots of work to be done, but I can’t wait until the summit at the end of May.

I’m not busy at all.

Yes, I am swamped. Yes, this is a lot, but I enjoy it and I am tired! This brings me to my summer plans:

I have 4 people coming to visit me this summer and I am so excited/nervous/anxious for them all to come. My college friend, Stevan is coming, along with my mom and her two besties! This is going to be a jam-packed summer. I am in charge of planning their trip here and I hope they fall in love with China just as much as I have. I am nervous that my language abilities will be terribly limited. This means that whenever I have free time (rarely ever), I have to be adamant about studying Chinese. I just hope we all have a wonderful, stress free summer!