CHINA LINGERS WITH ME

What can I say about China? I could recite some trite musing about the beauty and tranquility of this place...but I would be ignoring its vibrant and chaotic energy. I could take an outsider's scolding tone, protesting the oppression of the people by their government...but I would be overlooking their tenacious and indelible spirit. "Just give me the gist of it," you might demand, but I won't even try to constrain this vast ocean within a single drop of ink (or a few lousy keystrokes). Instead, I'll do my best to describe what I experienced here in five short postings on this blog, organized by the different places I visited (Chini, Guangdong Peizheng College, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Huadu).

I've only been in China for eight days, but it feels as though the entirety of my life preceding this trip was lived with an incomplete picture of the human race. I return home with an intensified appreciation for life; less concerned with the trifles that used to consume my existence. My sense of entitlement to all the luxuries I enjoy on a daily basis has diminished somewhat, and more important matters rise to the forefront of my mind. It has been both disillusioning and enlightening; destroying illusions of superiority and safety, and casting light on the beating heart of a people so different than I, and yet so alike. As I settle in on my plane bound for Tokyo and then the States, I notice that I am sitting in the same seat as when I flew in to Guangzhou. And though it may be through the same window, I gaze out at China through newly enlightened eyes as we make our ascent.