re-collecting

The other day I was sitting in a cafe close to my apartment and I hear a couple speaking Japanese. And I was brought back to a familiar time. Remembering the time I had spent there was valuable and hearing this language again reminded me that this experience is making an impact on me as well, but leaving a different sort of mark.

One of my friends here is about to leave China and go back to Canada. She is wondering if she has changed or if things will feel different when she gets home. This is the hardest question to answer. Change is one of the hardest things to measure, I think. For those of you reading this who have spent sometime in another country for a while or an environment that is unfamiliar to you, you can't really say to people, "Oh yes, I have changed." Often we can only feel this change inside of us. And, it is this change that is often the hardest thing to articulate to people.

I think it sometimes manifests itself in the ambiguity we feel when doing the same tasks we did before, but they seem like they are being done for the first time. Its like everything has to be relearned. You seemingly become a child again, questioning every taken for granted activity and value that you have come to know your whole life. If you allow yourself to become open to a country or its people, your thought process begins to change. Things that used to stress me out a year and a half ago, no longer do. Things I used to do a year and a half ago, I no longer do. People who are important in my life, have become even more so. Sounds I used to never hear before, are now what I want to tune my ears to. Sights I have never seen before, have caused me to see myself differently.

Recently, I have been reading "The Kite Runner," which is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I try to read it whenever I have a spare moment - on the metro to work, before bed or walking to my apartment. I find myself being lost in the story and feel disappointed everytime I must put the book down. I want to smell every page, experience every page, and let the story wash over me. I'm not sure why I'm talking about this exactly, but with every turn of the pages I begin to anticipate the events of this story and the changes that occur in the characters. With every turn of the page, the story becomes more complex and intricate. Have only lived in China for a little over 2 months and the story of this country and my experience of it keep evolving and changing . I think I come to one conclusion about this country, and another experience causes me to re-think my conclusions. And I often have to re collect myself at the end of the day.

I think its the act of re-collecting ourselves that causes us to look at the individual pieces of our lives in order to find the answers to the questions that we maybe knew all along. Now in China, I fee like the very nature of the questions I have been asking previous to this, are beginning to change.