Arrival

Written on July 20, 2006

As I sit here on our new couch in our new apartment, thinking back on the days passed, I find it difficult to believe we’ve been in this county for five months now. So much has happened that my admittedly negative feelings in regards to our moving half way around the world seem distant and surreal.  I was apprehensive, yes, but unafraid; I was unsure, yet willing to leave my friends and family and allow the chips to fall where they may; I was totally unprepared for the sense of belonging and the emotions which overwhelmed me within hours of my feet touching the soil in this new and foreign, often romanticized, land called China.

That said, let me tell you about our arrival… 

Beijing. 

We first set foot in this particular tourist Mecca at five a.m. on the fourteenth of February after a 14 hour red-eye flight from Los Angeles, on which neither child slept much.  Having only eaten airline food for the past three meals, we were all undernourished, overtired, and in no condition to deal with the scene which greeted us.

Two men from the Academy were ready at the gate to shake Rod’s hand, welcome us to China etc., but that’s where the Western etiquette ended…  The shorter of the men, whom I later realized was to be our driver, took hold of Samantha’s stroller and vanished into the sea of people.  I’d never seen so many individuals packed into one place in my life, and it terrified me, but not as much as the thought of my daughter drowning in this particular ocean and as her panic stricken cries of “Mama!!!” steadily faded into the distance, I gripped the handles of Joshua’s stroller and pushed through the bodies in hot pursuit as Rod was dragged off in the opposite direction by the other, taller of our two “welcomers”.  I believe we were all traumatized on some level by the incident.

We were supposed to spend the night in Beijing, rest, give the kids a break from traveling etc., but what we ended up with was a three hour bus ride on the heels of our ordeal in the airport, a full throttle melt down on Samantha’s part, and no stops for food, diaper changes, anything! Still, I realized a miraculous fact during that journey from hell:  I had come home.  I could feel it in every fiber of my being.  After a life-time abroad, I had found my way home.

There was something hauntingly beautiful in the patterns the naked trees painted on the February horizon, in the dirt roads zigzagging through a palate of fields, brick houses, and the silhouettes of bicyclists.  I fell hopelessly and irrevocably in love with the country and as I sat there with my forehead resting against the window, Josh sleeping in my lap, head on my shoulder, Sam likewise asleep, curled up against my leg, I could feel a tear run down my cheek.  Soon another followed.  Then another, and another, but my breath never caught in my chest, nor did I feel as though I ought not to shed these tears.  They were not of sour origins.  Instead, I welcomed them, allowed them, and the peace they carried, to wash over me until I too drifted off into a thin slumber knowing that, despite the fact I was far from sure of how to handle myself in the new environment, I would survive.

All too soon though, the children woke up, screaming for food which we were not in possession of.  The driver refused to stop, and our translator, not quite understanding why we should, saw no reason to push the issue.  All of that wonderful confidence vanished as easily as it had come and by the time we finally reached Shijiazhuang, I was livid. 

Now, Chinese people genuinely love children.  They not only enjoy holding them, but they are willing to accept them readily into their hearts as though they were family.  One can see it in the warmth which emanates from a Chinese smile directed at a child, regardless of race or creed.  It’s refreshing, but vast amounts of adoration, on any level, can be overwhelming, and, seeing as how we brought the first pair of little blonde haired blue-eyed Americans to this part of the world, we had inadvertently signed up for a fame we were not yet ready to accept.

Everyone wanted a look at Sam and Josh.  And I mean everyone.

Inevitably, a small group of people began queuing up about ten feet from where I stood like a Mama tigress guarding her cubs.  I could feel steeliness in my eyes regardless of the polite smile which I was forcing myself to maintain.  I knew that coldness was the only thing really holding the wolves at bay, so to speak.  Thankfully, these people, unlike those in Beijing, kept their distance.  Still, as I surveyed the line up, I began to loose hope.  Not one amongst the faces I saw before me seemed to hold much promise of more than a cordial acquaintance.

“Alright Elizabeth,” I told myself, “It will be okay. You will okay.  You always have been before.  You have these children to think of, your husband to support you and you’re already used to being alone.  Those three years in the Arizona desert had to have been preparing you for something. Maybe this is it.”  I may as well have been talking to a wall though because my heart wasn’t paying attention.  It was groping desperately for my seemingly elusive peace.  “Ah well,” I thought, “at least there’s no harm in finishing up my survey of the people standing here gawking at us.”

However, a slight movement just behind the group of employees caught my attention.  Apparently the line-up was yet to be completed...  A prospect which left a distinctly bitter taste in my mouth, but the person coming to see what all the commotion was about seemed different in some way.  In fact, she felt safe and at that point in time, this one feature seemed lovelier and more important to me than all others combined. 

She was, at first glance, what I would call your stereotypical provincial Chinese woman, smaller than the average American in height, with short hair, no makeup, and slightly darker skin than that of the Beijing locals, but there was something so remarkably calm in the way she approached us, her pace slower, her stride more graceful than those of her predecessors, that part of me wanted to run to her, throw my arms around her, and thank her for her inadvertent reassurance. Instead, I reached out with my eyes in an attempt to hold her gaze long enough to probe the possibility of finding a connecting point between us. Not only did she permit this, but my curiosity was greeted warmly and rewarded with an affirmative to the questions which needed no translator to ask, at least not under the circumstances.  I’d met my first friend.  I knew it. 

Be that as it may, I was simply thankful to have met one person whom I felt was trustworthy.  I didn’t dare hope for more, but when a second twitch in my peripheral vision caused me to instinctively investigate, I knew I was again laying eyes on a new friend.

At the far end of the lobby, near the elevators, a hallway led off to unknown regions of the building and at the mouth of that hall stood a fairly short, pretty, little woman in a turquoise uniform which set off her copper toned skin remarkably.  She too donned the shorter hair style characteristic of many Chinese women, especially those with a few years under their belts and I was immediately struck by a desire to draw a portrait of her, which is generally a sign of something deeper. 

She didn’t approach the little knot of onlookers for quite some time, opting to observe from her position approximately thirty feet in front of where I stood with my children, but, once she realized that I was staring at her, she slowly made her way towards us. 

I couldn’t quite put my finger on why she seemed reluctant to come closer, I still haven’t figured that out, but while watching her draw nearer, I could feel the coldness melt from behind my eyes.  I wanted her to know that I liked her, a lot, and held a genuine desire for her to meet my children. 

This instinctual pull towards complete strangers, though not entirely unfamiliar (I’d felt something akin to it when laying eyes on nearly all of my friends in the States, most powerfully upon introduction to Rodney), seemed just as foreign as China and all it held in store.  Perhaps this was due to the fact that the ability to weave a veil from words suddenly seemed like a useless technique; perhaps I was just too tired to do anything else but feel, as raw and emotionally charged as those feelings were…  I don’t know, but meeting these two women restored my peace to enough of a degree that, after a few more minor bumps in the remainder of the road for that day, I was able to rest that night, not merely collapse from exhaustion.

The following morning, though uncertain of myself and my place in this new world, I was no longer frightened.  Again, I was filled with the confidence that we would survive.  My peace had returned.