Impressions of the last week

Walking by Yanbian University and walking into a huge cloud of vanilla-extract-smell. This is entirely curious as there is no bakery anywhere nearby, I have never seen vanilla extract anywhere in Yanji, and it is DEFINITELY a departure from the normal street smells one encounters here.

Saying good bye to a friend Hyunho, a Korean-Chinese who is moving to Japan to start a new life. I realize the chances of me seeing him again are slim. I realized with kind of a sense of tyranny that i now have good friends who live in, permanently,... lets count... 26 countries. No matter where I am in the world, my friends will be perpetually elsewhere. Even if i move to the states, my friends are scattered all over. Homelessness...

Sharing with a guy in my apartment about the Great Hope for us for Salvation, and feeling as if the needed words and analogies were pouring through me, and not from me. Hearing him say at the end, that he had asked many Xn's about this Great Hope, and that this was the first time he ever really got a good answer, that he could believe in. Praise Him

Sitting in a Good Friday service, where the litany was let by a British Anglican, the verse was read by a Korean Russian, the announcements by a French Chinese scholar married to a Jamaican, the closing done by a North Carolina Southern Baptist, as southern as they come, sitting next to my German friend Moritz, and meeting our new French teacher in French from French Guiana, planning with my Korean-Californian friend Jamie how we will say good bye to our Korean-Swiss friend Angela who is moving to Shijiazhuang to study traditional Chinese medicine. Yesterday alone i taught in Russian, had fairly substantial conversations in French and German, had Korean class, joked with Chunhua a bit in Chinese, and of course taught American culture in English...

My American culture lessons this week were on three hefty topics- Mormonism, Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny. SOO interesting. At least to me! And a challenge to teach these subjects to students who already have their firm ideas about American foreign intervention in world affairs, and American history. Teaching that class requires more than anything, detachment. I can't love America too much, and I can't be too critical of it. I am thankful for the overseas experience i have had, without which, i don't think i would be in the position to do this well....

Yesterday was one of the longest days of my life, and it was so nice to reward myself at the end with a bit of Brie cheese... from Changchun... acquired only with much ingenuity and luck. I have never thought to praise Him for cheese before until I moved to Yanji. :)

More and more I realize that I am not actually in China. YUST, and the world i find myself in, is so much more a weird mix of Korean, and YUST's own odd culture. If i try to tell anybody when i get back home what "china" is like, don't believe me- I haven't been there :)

I read American short stories every night before I go to bed, trying to inform myself on the breadth and mystery of the American culture, as i am teaching American Culture class. It has been a long time since I have loved literature so much. Funny that i had to move to Yanji to rediscover a fascination for things American....

Just a few random thoughts from a very busy week...