One of the things that I wasn't expecting but have
greatly enjoyed since arriving in China almost 2 years ago is the incredible
mix of cultures that are part of our lives here. Yes, of course, there
are lots and lots of Chinese people but we also interact with Koreans,
Japanese, Germans, British, Africans, South Africans, Spanish, French, Aussies,
New Zealanders, Slovakians, Dutch, Canadians, Finish, and the list goes on.
I just listed those that came to mind right away that we play with, go to
school or church with or have just grown friendships from chance encounters.
I'm often struck by how small my view of the world was before we came to
live here and I continue to be very grateful for the opportunity for not only
myself to be exposed to these other incredible cultures and languages but also
that my girls, and particularly Xan.
She is old enough right now to interact and build her own friendships with these
"different" people and yet doesn't see them as different at
all.
Sure, they may talk differently or eat
different foods than we do but those differences aren't things that keep us
from having friendships with them and honestly in the US I'm not sure that we
would be that way. Now before you go judging…..hear me out on
this........I don't think we would have as many multicultural friends for a
couple of reasons.
1- We just aren't exposed to them. We
never lived in a large city or near a large population of people that were
really much different than us....our biggest "difference" was often
the University you attended or the denomination of your church ;-).
2- We gravitate to what is easiest. I
have many, many wonderful American friends here and to be honest they are
probably the ones that I'm most "comfortable" with but it's because
it's easy for me. I don't have to work or try very hard to find common
ground, they get my jokes, like the same foods, etc. My non-American
friends often don't laugh when I say something I think is quiet funny, they think
we eat way too much sugar and they find my southern accent a little hard to
understand. However, that being said, I have learned a ton about other
cultures by nurturing those friendships and trying to find that common ground
that is really pretty easy since we're all living an expat life and most of us
are moms and wives. I have come to love hearing the different ways to
prepare foods, raise our children, interact with families, and holiday
traditions as well as what their day to day life looks like.
Xan attended a party this past Saturday for
Valentine's Day and when I went to pick her up I just smiled at the faces
sitting around the room. I made the comment to my friend's husband that
we were incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to have such a diverse group
of friends from literally all over the world. Xan and the hosts' daughter
were the only American kids there. There were children from Mexico,
England, Korea, Hong Kong, and one I'm not certain of. Food is often the
center of conversation for we moms since we are all trying to
"recreate" familiar dishes from our home countries in a foreign land
and I just had to chuckle as those sweet moms sat around my friends table happily munching on cheetos and rice krispy treats.......I was in heaven but
I'm pretty sure they were enjoying it too.
Well it has taken me a while to get where I'm going
but my inspiration for this post was an experience I had this past Sunday at
church related to this whole idea. We attend what is called an
International Fellowship church that is open to foreign passport holders only
and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that we literally have 30+
nationalities represented most Sundays. It is a very diverse group and we
often say that it has to be similar to what heaven will be like one day.
Anyway, I was in the nursery with Maggie and due to a helper shortage
(seriously.....every church nursery, even in China, has helper shortages haha)
I needed to stay in the room with her. There is another little girl in
the room that was playing away with the toy dishes and food. I know her
mom and see her often around so I wasn't a complete stranger for her. She
is 3 and has lived in China her entire life and I knew that she was fluent in
Chinese. Now I must tell you that Sarah's parents are from the Congo and
have the most beautiful dark skin you've ever seen and it is AMAZING to watch
them in worship. They make you want to know whoever it is they know cause
it is just beautiful.....but I digress. So here is sweet little
Sarah speaking 90 miles an hour in Chinese to me and I'm trying to answer back
and ask her questions with my very limited vocabulary. It was obvious
that she wasn't understanding my Chinese a couple of times and I'd revert to my
English and sure enough she'd
understand me. (Her mother and father are both fluent in English.) One
particular time, though, she was trying to tell me something and I didn't
understand and she busted out with some French (with a perfect dialect I might
add). So....here is this 3 year old who in the course of a 30 minute
interaction used 3 languages on me. WOW! Talk about humbling....I
only know one little language and struggle mightily to try and grasp a tiny bit
of another. We Americans are certainly behind on the language
issue.......so, so many of the people I meet know at least 2 and many know 3 or
4 different languages. Again I say WOW! We are doing our part to
help Xan with a second language and she is actually doing very well with her
Chinese. Stan attends classes too so needless to say my Chinese is by far
the back of the pack at our house and I'm not ashamed to admit that I've used
Xan on more than one occasion to translate for me. I've had a tutor in
the past but haven't had one for quite some time now and maybe, just maybe it's
time to get back into the learning mode. I'll keep you posted.
So.....a bit of rambling but I think you get my
drift. We live in the midst of some very different but great people from all
over the world and I just think that is pretty cool. Our lives will be
better because of them.
Chat with ya later-
