Hengyang Favorites

I think I dug myself into a hole. So, to remedy that I want to highlight:

“Reasons why, even though I am loving it in Siping,

my heart is still in Hengyang.” :)

• Familiar locals: corner store guy, regular restaurants “out back”, the fruit lady, gatekeeper in his pajamas, giggling motorcycle taxi drivers at the bus stop, shoe shine ladies, copy people, Muslim noodle, the electricians (why do we need a committee of 6 to fix my sink?), the man who brings us our cooking gas (one time disappeared with the gas tank and didn’t come back for a month!), should I go on?
  
• Mrs. Kuang. She was our waiban (foreign affairs office) and was like a grandmother to us. She has been working with foreign teachers for twenty years before she retired last year! While at home last term I was able to interview a woman who had been a teacher at our school in 1986! We found that while a lot has changed in Hengyang over the space of 20 years, we were able to share delightful stories about this precious woman.


• The students. Oh, the students. There was one particular class (class 6!) that came over quite regularly- cooking, playing games, cooking, watching movies, cooking. Cooking parties usually lasted for at least four hours! :) :) My time with them was precious! One night one of the girls was having a birthday party in my apartment and her brother got locked in my bathroom because the lock had jammed. Forty-five minutes later we had exhausted all efforts and my teammate ended up hacking down the door with a butcher cleaver. :) She kept saying this was a birthday she’d never forget. :)
• The Elephants Upstairs. This is what I used to call my two guy teammates who lived on the floor above me. Whenever students were over it sounded like there were large elephants upstairs. I loved that sound because it meant the presence of people having a good time. One time one of the guys who lived directly above me was teaching the students the tango or some cha-cha-cha in his apartment- "party through the roof" takes literal meaning here :). I miss the sound of the elephants.
  
• Learning about true community. I have a real family there and leaving them was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Ever. It has been a joy walking with them in their journeys and learning from their questions and insights into Life. They know who they are.
• The fact that they don’t speak standard Chinese and glory in their own Hengyang dialect (this may seem like a contradiction from why I like Siping, but you will discover that China is a land of paradox). Deep hearted laughs when we attempt to say a few words in their heart language make it so much fun! I laugh because on a bus, anywhere, everyone is yelling (yes, yelling) into their phones because they can’t hear each other…and neither can they understand each other because every other phrase is yelled “Huh? Huh? Shenme? (what?). Ah, the character of that place!


• The eight-year-old boys who come marching up the stairwell and banging on Ekren’s door as loud as they can to ask if he would come play baseball with them. I love arguing (quite logically, I might add) with one of the boys about silly things :)


• Team dinner nights- during my second year in Hengyang we started team nights that became like a potluck. Not much organization, so sometimes we’d end up with some of the most random combinations, or all five of us would come with dessert. :) :) The next year we got things together and had some of the best dinners ever- all the more true when you’re attempting to make western food in China, especially with ovens the size of toasters :) . Sometimes you have to be creative. :)
  
• The food. Before I came to China I never ate spicy food, now I find myself missing Hunan’s famous spicy cuisine. I miss the guys on the team having a contest as to who can withstand the most spicy in hot pot restaurants.
  
• The fact that there is NO central heating. I do not say this lightly. Because it causes one to reflect on what’s REALLY important. When we are stripped to the bare necessities what are the things that really matter? It means you have to sit closer together to stay warm, it means you always have people in your home because the more people the warmer, both in body and in heart. It allows you to truly empathize and brings solidarity. It is why I really appreciate something simple like the heat that much more. While I enjoy the “luxury” of the north (even though it’s bitterly cold outside until May), I would love to brave the southern winters again :)

While my heart is in Hengyang, I’m also learning to love Siping, and anticipating life in Xinjiang if that’s where I am to be…and I’m realizing that I don’t have to define favorites or choose one place over another- each has unique characteristics that cause me to love the whole of China that much more. :)