"Are you ready for the country, because it's time to go."

Two hours by bus and subway and a world away from urban China.

Jim, Marcus and I were invited (actually invited ourselves) to the home of one of his friend's parents. Both he and his parents, he tells us, are very happy we want to take the time to meet them. I am spending the week trying to figure out the appropriate gift to bring: I settle on a basket of fruit our family picks out from the local city markets because we are told that: 1) It is a traditional gift when Chinese visit hosts; and 2) Fresh fruit that is not grown in the village can be quite expensive for those who live there.
Our friend's parents are "peasants" and the only reason we are getting to meet them is because this colleague did so amazingly well at school that he received scholarships that allowed him to continue in school -- all the way through his PhD -- a literally one-in-a billion case.

So we are all together, ambling up a newly paved path ("This is no good...no plants can grow here now" says Jim's colleague). I'm surprised at this country attitude coming from a city-living PhD-er.

His father and his father's oldest brother greet us: the father in a Nike windbreaker and tennis pro cap and uncle wearing a wool suit. We walk over the path, rice fields on either side of us, looking yellow green in the distance and reaching toward the mountains. The air is fresh.
The house consists of three structures: an outhouse (a squat toilet connected to the pig stalls) an open room with a dining table, benches, a wall full of our friend's school achievement certificates with official red star stamps (the display had to be rearranged several times, as the awards kept coming), and bags of fresh rice from his family's fields (the brown for the pigs, the white for people); and a house with an open kitchen and one closed room: the bedroom.

Our friend's mom, about my size with a brown wrinkle-less face, huge smile, straight strong back, serves us duck with potatoes, chicken, a greens and tofu dish, rice, and stir-fried cilantro. We dig into the greens and cilantro though the family has strategically placed the meat in front of us. It's all just so good.

Later, Marcus and I feed brown rice and its chaff to the ducks, and chickens (which sneak into the dining area, but are shooed away by our friend's mom) and pigs. I admire the baby pigs and our friend's dad makes the slash-across-the-throat sign ie: "do I want him to slaughter it so I can eat it?" Somehow I'm able to communicate that it is not that kind of like, so the baby pig lives another day.

At some point, after several cups of tea, I have to use the bathroom, and our friend's mom worries that perhaps I should use the village toilet, and I insist that theirs is just fine. I try to balance myself and commune with the pigs and it all works out.

We are the only foreign family in recent memory to visit the village, and we try to not commit any faux pas, though it's hard to know what is or is not acceptable. We come to understand that not having third helpings would have been an insult, but we are expected at another professor's home that evening for dinner and not eating at THAT home would have been an insult: so we get away with just having seconds.

Jim and Marcus are doing well speaking and understanding the Chinese conversation. But then Marcus has a hard time at one point listening and smiling to all this adult talk (very few kids in the village as families who can move to the city often do, unfortunately) and asks to play with his hand-held game computer. I say "no." So, instead, he goofs around and starts making animal noises, and our friend's father declares he must be very bright, as any boy in the village who can do such a thing is considered very smart. I think he is being polite, but I'll accept it.

We take two long walks, one through the village center and see a few kids. One little boy starts crying because he is afraid of the foreigners. One little girl hides, then bravely says hello. I make a baby laugh by tickling his feet, so I feel I successfully communicated.

We are invited back, and I am amazed at what I saw. I ask our friend if he thinks living in the city or country is "easier" and he believes country life is better, "because you always have food."

I do hope things continue to go well for his parents. As an only child in a system with no pension, our friend will be their sole source of support should they be unable to work. I ask him what their thoughts are on his amazing achievement. His father's parents were able to afford 6 years of school, his mother's, two. "They have no idea," he says.

What sabbatical?

I've spent most of the last week line editing 22 student stories. Most of them are fascinating--examples below--but take about an hour each to edit. I've also been invited to lecture at 2-3 other colleges in Nanjing, am working hard on my Chinese and helping Marcus with his Hebrew tutoring. And I'm now one of Nina's acupuncture patients. I went to her clinic yesterday where I had my chronic knee pain treated by the head doctor and half a dozen students. They stuck in lots of needles and used heat from burning cotton swabs (as the smoke was rising, I told the doctor I felt like a Nanjing kao yangguizi, a Nanjing roasted foreign devil). Four more treatments to go. The good news, I'm told, is that none of this can do any harm.
Marcus is making new friends--he's having a sleepover with a Canadian boy and his family this weekend--and enjoying the school. They brought in a former European league basketball player to coach the kids this week. They're also studying Shakespeare, Roman history, maths and Chinese. (He's getting better faster than I am but is usually too shy to speak.) We're also hanging out regularly with Ma Yan and her family--a connection from an NU Chinese prof. We went to the driving range with them Sunday and then Marcus and BangBang joined dozens of kids half their size bouncing around a giant, inflated jungle gym in Baima park. We're going to try to cook together Sunday.
Back to some student papers. I assigned them to write travel pieces during the week off and now they're rewriting them. Most of them have great story ideas although they have trouble with English, particularly our weird colloquialisms. One story was based on a student's visit to a small Hani viilage in Xishangbanna where she and her family visited a Hani home (where they butchered a pig for them) and went with them to pick tea leaves. Another student visited a museum commemorating a shipyard in Mawei that introduced European education to China in 1866, brought foreign teachers here and sent students, some of whom became prominent leaders, to study in Europe beginning at age 12. Another wrote about the freshwater springs of Jinan City through the eyes of a 70-year-old man who has lived there all his life.
"On a sunny afternoon, Cui Liangjun came to wash clothes in a spring stream, and happened to come across another old neighbor. They swung clothes lightly, and let running water wash dirt away. At the same time, they chatted charmingly together, sharing news on the price of eggs, discussing details of their shadowboxing practices, and exchanging information about their children. They both have lived here for many years and are highly familiar with each other’s family. In this traditional Chinese community, a near neighbor is better than a distant cousin. Cui said he knows the names of his neighbors’ kids, breeds of their pets, and their hobbies. “I can even know what they will eat at supper by the smell,” he said.

Rosh Hashana and The Golden Week

At the end of class a week ago Tuesday (September 23), my students asked me if I was having class on Sunday. I hadn't heard about it before, but it seems that's the price we pay for Golden Week. National Day on October 1, celebrating the Communist Party coming to power on October 1, 1949, has become National (Golden) Week this decade, an opportunity for hundreds of millions of Chinese to travel to historic sites, visit family and spend money. I don't think that's what Mao had in mind, but Deng Xiaoping is smiling.
At any rate, since the holiday doesn't officially start until Wednesday (and all the students leave town well before that), those of us with Monday or Tuesday classes hold a makeup session on Sunday. About half my students came but it was a pleasant class. I also got to spend part of the morning with four Nanjing high school students who wanted to discuss careers in journalism with me. They are even more shy than my grad students but I'm planning to see them at least a few more times. It's the kind of outreach the Fulbright program encourages and it's fun for me.
We'd been thinking about going back to Shanghai for Rosh Hashana since Chabad holds services there. (Judaism is not one of the authorized religions in China but Rosh Hashana is OK since it's a New Year's festival of sorts.) But Marcus's Hebrew tutor Enav told us he'd be conducting a small service here in Nanjing at the Judaic Studies Center. It was another unique China experience.
About a dozen of us gathered around the conference table--Chinese master's and doctoral students in Judaic Studies, a junior faculty member, an old China hand whose connection to China goes back to the days of Kissinger and Nixon, Marcus, Nina and I--and joined Enav in blessing wine (he brought a bottle from Israel), bread (which Enav baked) and plates of fish, fruits and vegetables Enav had prepared. String beans, pomegranates, pumpkin, apples, honey. We talked about the significance of the holiday, said our blessings and ate. A special Rosh Hashana.
We spent the rest of Golden Week following Deng's wishes by joining half the country in Beijing. We've all seen the new China on tv but it's certainly different from the country I taught and traveled in during the mid 80s and the China Nina and I saw on our three-week trip here in 1992. Beijing is a stunning, futuristic city. It also had a palpable feel of political control we haven't sensed in Nanjing. Police, security checks, security cameras. People who are careful about what they say. Tiananmen Square may be filled with crowds but it's clear the Party is keeping a close watch on their make up.
We got to spend some time with our Fulbright friends in Beijing. The Balla family lives outside a hutong (a traditional neighborhood with single story houses that open onto narrow unpaved streets)in northwest Beijing and we met them near Tiananmen just after we arrived (but not until we got our first taste of Beijing duck). The crush of people in the subway and on the street was overwhelming so we headed to the night market where we sampled everything from jiaozhe to scorpions. We did the usual tourism--Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace--the next day, then headed to their hutong and a great family-style restaurant.
On Friday, we visited the Great Wall at Mutianyu--almost tranquil (except for the hawkers) compared with the other sites. Ok, so I bought a "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt and Marcus bought a funny paper hat. Then back to town to join the Ballas at a Uighur/Muslim restaurant with terrific chicken kebabs and a curry, anise, paprika dish that translates as "big plate of chicken."
We paid our respects to The Chairman on Saturday--two hours of pushing and shoving in an endless line so we could spend about 30 seconds filing by his eerie but well-preserved corpse. And more jostling to see the Forbidden City. One thing that hasn't changed in my decades away is the Chinese passion for taking pictures of each other virtually blocking out historic sites in the background.
We got back to Nanjing late Saturday. It's nice to be home. It's even nicer that our adopted home in China feels that way.