...And All of the People

I just had a thought...we spend so much time and effort trying to find ourselves. What if we get to the end of the journey and find out that there was nothing there to find to being with? And would that really be so bad?

Ah, but I digress.

Most of my friends have now departed Shanghai; Carol left early last Monday morning and Haruka, who was supposed to stay here for a year, had to go home to Japan for emergency surgery. Of course I miss them terribly. In the brief time I knew her Carol became like a little sister to me, and Haruka...well, what can I say but you know you're good friends when you don't speak the same language and you can still communicate like there's no barrier there at all.

So I've been spending a lot of time talking to and hanging out with my language partner James, who really is the coolest Chinese guy I've ever met. He's completely taken with western music - real music, too, not the syrupy love songs that dominate modern Chinese culture - he rides a skateboard, and his English, in spite of the fact that he's never had a native speaker for a teacher, is at near-native fluency. Not only that, but he is one of the more conscientious Chinese I've met as well; in this time of dramatic change for the Chinese, it's kind of rare to meet someone with a well-developed social conscience. And he's got it in spades. He's incredibly concerned with the world around him. It's amazing. He's unique not just as a Chinese, but as a person, period.

I am blown away by the people I've met this trip. I think that never before in my life have I forged so many amazingly deep friendships in such a short period of time. Is it right that anyone should be this blessed? I hardly feel deserving of it.

Last night I went to the Shanghai aquarium with James and his friend Sig and, let me tell you, if you're one of those people who doubts God has a sense of humor all you need to do is visit this place and it'll clear that right up for you. I have never seen so many strange fish in one place before. And when I say strange, it's not the kind of strange where you cock your head and say, "hm, that's kind of weird." It's more strange like "oh, that's where all the dinosaurs went" kind of strange. And boy howdy, some of these suckers were ugly. The eels made me cry, they were so gross. And they had an underwater tunnel with sharks. BIG ones.

I liked the sharks. Although after seeing them up close I have to say I find the whole Finding Nemo fish-are-friends-not-food scenario significantly less believable.

At dinner last night James gave me an amazing present: a book written by his dad. It's a memoir of his experiences during the cultural revolution, which he spent in the fields in North China doing penance for his family's capitalistic past. It's signed, dedicated to me and dated, which is especially amazing considering there are only 5,000 copies in print. James says it's an underground book. I was so touched I almost started to cry. My Chinese isn't quite good enough to read it yet, but it gives me something to work toward. In the meantime it's wrapped in plastic and sitting in the back of my closet so the cover doesn't get bent.

I am, at this moment, completely in awe of life, of the beauty it has in its transcience, of the little blessings that lump together to make one gigantic - albeit slightly messy - lump of blessings. And it just sits there in front of us waiting for us to open our eyes and look at it, and most of the time we just sit there with our eyes squeezed tight shut. I am, at this rare and quiet moment, at a near-loss for words. Almost.