Kaleidoscope

“Give me highs, give me lows,”

When I came to China, my apartment was on the 33rd floor and the view was stunning.

Now, I’m on the bottom floor and my view is… stunning. I guess it’s trendy to emblazon Hello Kitty on your undergarments here.

In part, variation is natural. Seasons; cycles; our circadian routine. The light would be blinding were there no night. I love exploring new places, but sometimes I need to take a break. Touring China all winter vacation was a ball, but I had to follow it with days in bed binge reading and rearranging my home screen icons.

On other days, though, the lows are simply lows. Like having to move out of a great apartment to a world of grandmothers hanging laundry so close to my window I could literally touch it from my bed.

There are days when I feel great about my Chinese. Days when the isolated bits of the language solidify into structures. I grow giddy with excitement when I understand banter and can even catch the odd joke. But then someone asks me the simplest question and I second-guess what they’d just said. As I flounder for words, I lunge at these newly formed structures only to find their delicate features not solid, but ash that disintegrates as I grasp for it.

There are days when my writing feels natural and days when I read it and think gosh, I’m pretentious.

And days when I publish it anyway.

I decided this semester to pick the most interesting classes regardless of their difficulty or inconvenience. It was going to be a great semester. Then classes start and the way I’m understanding them, they may as well be in Chinese.

I meet amazing friends here and then I’m afraid to talk to them. Group messages are terrifying. I hole up in my room even though it’s the last thing I want to do.

“Give me thorns with my rose – I want everything.”

The Chinese have an aphorism for every situation. There’s even a saying that they’re reminded of whenever I mispronounce my metro stop.*

There’s one that comes to my mind when the lows sink in. It’s actually a poem, and I don’t think any of its English translations quite do it justice.

横看成岭侧成峰，
远近高低各不同，
不识庐山真面目，
只缘身在此山中。
– 蘇軾

From side: cliff walls; yet a peak from base.
Far, near, high, low: never the same place.
Since I stand here within its midst
How can I know Mount Lu’s true face?
– Su Shi, Translated by Su Tong (some punctuation mine)

Su Shi writes of his experience in the Lu mountain range. The most common allusion to the poem is the phrase “knowing Mount Lu’s true face,” used to describe a profound understanding of something. But there’s another piece of the poem: the idea that an insurmountable cliff and an attainable peak can both describe for the same mountain viewed from different perspectives.

Over winter break, I met my housemate Max’s parents (who were the sweetest! They treated me as their own and showed me all around Sichuan). They didn’t speak English, so it was a golden opportunity for me to practice my Chinese. I struck up conversation with his mother. And it was hard. Without even broken English to fall back on, I faltered and fumbled. At one point, someone laughed and told her not to bother – I didn’t have a chance. Which was true. I had to make her repeat everything, try different words, and re-explain. But she said no. She said no; this boy is hungry for Chinese: True, he doesn’t understand everything, but he does understand some things, and if I work with that, he’ll understand more things. I tucked away that sweet memory of someone choosing to see my Chinese from whatever angle it took to believe in me.

So I try to make the most of the lows. This laundry-strewn public housing project? A tour of Chinese fashion I’d probably never have gotten elsewhere. My writing? A journey – I’ll never be any good if I’m afraid to start. And I made it through these courses and texted those friends and had awkward moments and laughed about them. These mountains are beautiful, but it sometimes takes a believer to help me remember what they looked like before I plunged into them, to recall the last summit I stood on, or to imagine the rush I’ll feel when I reach the peak instead of cowering with fear at the cliffs ahead.

“Fire, rain – the whole kaleidoscope.”

*The area I lived in is called Tang2Lang3, but tones are not my forte, so sometimes I pronounce it more like Tang2Lang2 (see English // Chinese for an explanation what the numbers mean). Which is be beginning of the saying 螳螂捕蝉黄雀在后: The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the finch just behind. The English equivalent: “There’s always a bigger fish,” or perhaps “Don’t lose the forest for the trees.” I think the latter translation better captures the intended meaning, but I’m too attached to the imagery accompanying Qui-Gon Jinn’s use of the former.