Good Times and Being Content

So, it's been a while since I posted something, and a lot has happened in the past few days. I'll do a post tomorrow or the day after about the other stuff.

One thing that has been the highlight of my recent life was my trip to Bai Ta Shan, or White Pagoda (Tower) Mountain Park in Lanzhou.

It's located just north of Zhongshan Bridge near downtown Lanzhou.

Along with the bridge itself, it is a central landmark of the city. If you say, "Oh, it's by Bai Ta Shan," people will know exactly where you mean. 

Yeah, you can see from the pictures here, it's a pretty cool place - there's a lot of trees and shade, and it's pretty "new." 

Last year, it was being remodeled, so I didn't get to go to the park itself. I just got to go to another peak of the mountain range. 

I went with a bunch of Chinese friends and another foreign teacher. It was a great afternoon - a lot of laughs and a lot of new sights.  

The part is facing directly south. If you look at the picture here, you can see the gate to the park is directly across the street from the north-south running Zhongshan Bridge. Pretty much every important building, historical site, park, etc. has a gate somewhere, if not the main gate, facing north or south. 

That makes living in a city like Lanzhou easy. The river runs east-west, so you always can figure out where you are.

I had seen this exact picture so many times on the internet, but the pictures just aren't the same as actually being there. You just think to yourself, "Wow, I can't believe that I live here. This is such a crazy, amazing, polluted, wonderful, dirty, loud, and unique city. How did I end up here?" I did another post about "Seeing The Elephant," which talked about how it's impossible to understand these kind of feelings without actually being there. I hope someday you can come here and experience these things for yourself. It's great here.

You know, I came from a very small city of about 100,000 people, and to be in a city like this is a very interesting and wonderful experience.

It's so different from my hometown - Lanzhou has a long history and has a lot of special food and culture. I'm not saying that my hometown doesn't have these things, it's just a different kind of special.

Just look at this place - do you live in a place like this?? If you do, that's great! If you don't, try it! If you live in a big city, try going out to the countryside for a little while - find something different. It's been great for me, and I can't wait to try even more new things. It gives you this little rush - a little endorphin buzz every time you do something. It's something that can't be replicated.

Going to Bai Ta Shan may have just been a fun afternoon for my friends, but for me, it was a time to just be in the moment and reflect about where I'm at in my life right now.

I remember, just before I left for China, I was at church, and the preacher did a sermon about being content and not being restless in your life. For some people, they can find it in their job, some people can find it in religion, some people can find it with their friends, or any number of places.

For me, I am truly content in being here and continually learning new stuff and learning new things. I really wish I was my sister sometimes so I could pull out some crazy word from the Oxford English Dictionary to express myself, but I'm not, so I can't. I definitely miss home sometimes - my family, my friends, and the food, but I'm having a good time right now being a teacher and doing my China thing.

__________

Well, that's all I have for tonight - I'll put up another post about some other stuff  this weekend!

Seeing the Elephant

If you've ever spent significant time abroad, there's just something about it that is uncommunicable about your experience - that's what I'm talking about today. If you've been abroad, tell me where, when, and if you agree - I'd love to hear about it!

There is a phrase that combat veterans sometimes use when referring to the experiences of war and why they are so often reluctant to talk about it. It's called "seeing the elephant." It's an odd phrase that has some interesting origins, but I don't really want to get into that, but here's Wikipedia if you really want to know:

"Seeing the Elephant" Wiki

What I really want to talk about is the meaning the phrase. 

Currently, the phrase seems to pop up a lot among military combat veterans, particularly the enlisted. When someone has "seen the elephant," it means they have seen combat. 

It sounds simple, but there are a lot of dimensions to seeing combat - I was reading "Shooter" by Jack Coughlin and he talks about seeing the elephant. He says that if you've never felt the sting of smoke in your eyes, never heard a bullet zing by you, never killed a man, never smelled the stench of death, then you can never really talk about war with veterans. 

He says that in order for you to truly understand what war is, you have to be there and experience it yourself. Otherwise, war is just something sterilized you've seen on TV or read about in books.

This may seem like a clumsy parallel, but I believe that living abroad is the same way - you just have to be there to understand what kind of experience living in China is. When you've walked through the Hutongs of Beijing,

                         When you've hung out with people that don't speak your language,

When you smell the garbage dump you pass by every day to get to class (or go to a restaurant),

When you go across the world and meet wonderful friends who become your adopted family,

When you meet a girl you like and she likes you, but her dialect is so heavy you can't communicate well,

When you've been disturbed in the middle of the night by 'women of the night' coming into your hotel room.

When you've tried and failed to understand so much dialect from random cities that you feel like your language study has been worthless,

When you go down to a place as old, majestic, and historic as the Yellow River with your buddies just to skip rocks and kill time,

there's just something that is beyond communication to others. You tell them and they say, "that's cool," but that's all. There's just an added dimension there which is impossible to really convey. You had to be there.

You had to see the elephant.