China Reflection

This article is another look back on my two years spent in Jiangxi^W Province where I taught English at a small university in Yichun City^W.

The first time I visited the orphanage in Yichun City, the thing that struck me the most was not the fact that almost all of the orphans were girls.  Nor was I surprised at the ratio of caregivers to orphaned babies (about 20 or so babies in a room with 2 to 3 caregivers in all).  The thing that surprised me the most was that the orphanage was in the same complex as the retirement center for elderly whose families had abandoned them or could not care for them.  The two buildings were next to one another.  On the right was a one story, one room structure filled with unwanted babies.  On the left was a two storied complex inhabited by the elderly, many of whom were also abandoned by their own families.  When I looked at the two structures standing next to one another I had to wonder to myself, was it possible for a person to spend his whole life in this complex?  After being found in a public market, on a doorstep somewhere, in some lonely spot where no one could hear a baby crying, was it possible for a baby to grow up in this orphanage and die of old age in the building next door?

Find the Spot

Prior to my arrival in Yichun City, a wonderful South African couple had been living and teaching English at the University.  Their names were Jody and Michelle and their hearts could fill a room.  By the time of their departure, the entire duration of their stay in Yichun would add up to a total of 5 years.  They had seen Yichun’s roads paved and bridges built.  Yichun City had hosted the Farmers Olympics, an event in which farmers from all over the country converge to compete in farm-related sporting events.  They had watched their students grow into adults and find work in “the society,” and Michelle had even given birth to a lovely daughter named Bella.  I have to admit that if it wasn’t for Jody, I would have probably not decided to work in Yichun City.  At the time I was looking for work, I was still teaching English in Niigata, Japan^W.  My method for finding English teaching jobs was simply to search around on the net and see what was available.  I knew that I didn’t want to start out in a big city like Beijing or Shanghai.  I wanted to go someplace I had never heard from before.  I sent an e-mail to Yichun University and Jody responded.  Over the next few weeks, we kept up a correspondence.  He even gave my e-mail to some of my future students.  After receiving e-mails from these students and hearing how excited they were to meet me, I was hooked.  I felt as if I already had a home and an eager audience awaiting my arrival.  I had found the spot.

Jody and Michelle often made visits to the orphanage in Yichun, checking to see that the orphans and caregivers had enought milk, appropriate cribs, winter clothes, etc.  Often going into his own pocket to provide these gifts, I was in constant awe and often inspired by their generousity.  As it turned out, many families from the U.S. had adopted orphans from Yichun City in the past.  It was due to Jody and Michelle’s hard work that this became possible.  I remember one particular couple from the States who were returning to Yichun for a heritage visit, as well as to meet their new child that they would be adopting.  They already had a 5 year old daughter who they had adopted from Yichun when she was too young to remember.  They would be making the trip back to Yichun to meet with the caregiver who looked after her during those early days.  Afterwards, they would go to Nanchang^W, Jiangxi’s capital to meet their new child for the first time.  I remember being with them when they visited the orphanage to see the caregiver who took care of their daughter during their earliest and most vulnerable time.  The air filled with tension and anticipation, awkwardness and excitement as we walked through the gate of the orphanage.  Accompanied by Jody and a group of his students, the couple arrived at the orphanage bearing gifts for the supervisors and the caregivers as well.  I’m not sure the couple’s daughter exactly knew how much the  moment meant to those around her (how do you explain these things to a 5 year old?), but the silence was thick,impenetrable, and full of weight at the exact time her parents handed her over to her previous caregiver so that they could embrace for a hug.  She stroked her hair and said something to her that was unintelligable to me at the time, speaking in a Yichun dialect that I couldn’t understand.  Some moments in life are forever weighted down with such a heaviness of gravity and emotion that I don’t think I can ever forget them.  I can’t get the image of that scene out of my head:  the American couple looking on in deafening silence as their daughter embraced her first caregiver, the students from our university standing around staring, the tears welling up in Jody’s eyes, the blue sky above.  In this spot, life was happening.

After Jody and Michelle’s departure, I realized that I was not them and could not do what they did.  I remember having the same realization after class one day when I tried to teach like Jody, be like Jody.  He was a good teacher, so I thought I should use his techniques.  It didn’t work.  I couldn’t be Jody.  I could only be myself.  It was after I made this discovery that I really began to come into my own and develop my own style of teaching.  With regards to the orphanage, I would often visit with my students.  However, when we visited it began to dawn on me that I looked forward to seeing the elderly residents who lived there as much as I looked forward to seeing the orphans.  I have discovered over time that I increasingly enjoy the company of old men and women by my side.  I enjoy listening to their stories, spending time with them, and trying to get a picture of a past unknown to my own experience.  I like making that connection.  I like the connection because I know that old folks don’t have ulterior motives most of the time, and I feel that the connection comes easily to me.  Many people believe that old folks have ”had their day,” but they still need someone to talk with and spend time with every bit as much as those orphans do.  This was especially true of the folks who lived next to the orphanage.  Every time I would visit the orphanage with my students, I was told by one old woman how her family had abandoned her there.  With tears in her eyes, she would thank us for coming to visit her.  She cried every time we visited.  There was another woman who was 100 years old and could not move from her bed.  Her feet had been bound as a young girl, and my student, Faith, had to scream into her ear in a Yichun dialect in order to be understood.

Whenever we visited the orphanage, I usually made it a point to bring a group of students with me so that there could be some interaction amongst my students and the elderly, as well as with the children who lived there.  On some visits, my students would prepare gifts.  On other visits, they had prepared songs to sing or dances to perform for the residents.  When my parents came to visit, I took them there and we sat down in their rooms as their guests.  I remember once around Christmas time we had a particularly long visit.  One of my quietest students, Buninuo (a name that she had created for herself), sang a portion of a Beijing opera for the group.  I was shocked.  Buninuo was one of the few students who had failed my oral English exam the previous semester.  Of course, Beijing opera has no relation with having a conversation in English, so I don’t know why I was surprised (incidentally, she made a great improvement in my class the the second time around).  As soon as she started singing, one older man jumped into the circle and began to sing with her.  There we were, gathered around my student and the older man.  Standing in the middle of the courtyard belting out tunes in Chinese, I’m sure they never even realized they were etching their way to a spot deep inside of my heart.

The future

We never know what images we will file away into the depths of our consciences.  What kinds of memories are we going to keep with us?  What kind of memories are going to be the ones that make that find the spots?  I wonder about that little girl returning to the orphanage.  Will she remember that moment when her Chinese caregiver held her in her arms again?  I think about the old woman who wailed her tears of abandonment each time we visited her in her room.  When will she find the spot that gives her peace?  I hear the voices of Buninuo and the old man singing in the middle of a circle of students and teachers, the young and elderly, Chinese and foreign.  Will they sing together again?  When I think about the orphanage in Yichun, sometimes I think about the despair that brought the people there.  Sometimes I think about the happy endings that a handful of the children may be leading in their new lives with their new families in a place far, far from Yichun.  Usually I think about the moments that were created while I was there.  It didn’t feel like an orphanage or retirement center when I visited.  It just felt like a place, a community that gathered together to share and check up on each other’s histories and stories, a spot where life happens still today.  A spot that I’ll return to someday in the future.