In the Mirror. Already.

I knew it would come soon, but I hardly expected the e-mail to come, now.

It was an e-mail from someone else--the next person to come to my school to be exact--asking for my thoughts, opinions, and overall impression of the place.

It's interesting on two counts. One, I'm not even through with being here. And two, well, it makes me already stare at my own experiences so far, look myself in the mirror, and ask myself...

"What have I done? What have I accomplished? What have I experienced?"

I wrote her a rather lengthy e-mail detailing my school, the city, the environment, and other mundane questions she asked about. And of course, I went into details about my teaching experience, which has changed significantly since I last wrote (in a good way for me, in a raise the white flag kind of way) and I'll write about the next time.

But the question I mostly inquired about, and asked her to reflect on it herself, was what her goals were in coming here in the first place.

I was in a unique position when I applied. I had just sent in my graduate school applications and had some time to burn, and so burn away time I did. I came here to China, to get some teaching experience and just to try something different.

And that's exactly what has happened. I'm here, I now have some teaching experience under my belt (though not of the type I imagined), and I am here, experiencing something different. Most of what I have experienced and learned has been about two things. One, my own cultural identity, and two, a realization on how big the world is and more importantly, how small I am.

I'll touch on number two first. Studying abroad in Hong Kong two years ago already made me realize how big the world is. Living in a place completely different from home does that to you. You see that there are people in the world who live lives completely different from the way you do yourself, yet often share variations on--if not exactly--similar topics. Everyone has dreams. Everyone has hopes. Everywhere there is some concept of family, though obviously its purpose differs.

Coming here in China, took that view and destroyed it. It was like I had experienced first hand how big the world was in Hong Kong, and then someone took a bat to my brain and said, "You think this is big? You have no idea." The concept is the same. People in the world who live lives completely different from my own, but to what great lengths? I can only imagine other parts of the world now. Living in China, especially in this rural place of sorts, has been so different from everything I ever experienced, it's a series of never ending shocks. The people here are so culturally different from the things I know, the things I call familiar, everything I've seen. To experience first hand the people, their lifestyle, what their window of the world looks like...it's an exercise in exhilaration and awe (at least, for the curious and open minded.) I can only imagine how much life must be different for people in Africa. The Middle East. I often wonder, what if really, I were to switch places with some of the students here? What if I traded my western upbringing for this rural place in rapidly developing China? All they know of my home is what they see on TV (state run I might add), and the postcards I show them.

Yet all this is an exercise in a mental struggle, which brings me to point one: identity. The problem with all this observation doing, is that I'm in China, and that ethnically, I'm Chinese. It's a struggle, because despite my own views, I'm somehow told here and there that I should be able to identify with my "motherland," which is a ridiculous thought to begin with, please don't seriously ingrain it into anyone's head. The problem being what I stated before. Everything here is culturally different from the things I know, the things I call familiar. It all boils down to one concept.

China is foreign to me.

It's not just some "oh I'm Asian American of course China's foreign". It's a true realization that China, and I, have almost nothing in common. Their communication style is weird, the implications ridiculous to me, the context sensitivity tiring, their methodology mind baffling. I've always internally compared myself to my other Asian American friends and always felt less Asian. That always left me with a mixture of pride, and a feeling I won't classify as shame. More like, confusion. Should I be more Asian? Should I be more...anything?

And today, I give an emphatic yet simple answer. No.

In a way this is the best thing this experience could have done for me. In college I was (in a way) incorrectly told that I was Chinese for a reason (which is true), but the implications where subtly drawn in the sand that that meant certain things for my identity, and for what that meant I should identify with. That's finally beginning to be done away with...the idea that I need to identify with something. I can just be who I am and identify with what I do identify with, and be curious and open minded about the rest.