Just Breathe

When I was eleven-years-old, my family vacationed for the first time in Beijing, China. We had just arrived from Mongolia on the Trans-Siberian Railway and I was both exhausted and ridiculously excited to be off the train. As we sat in the taxi that would take us to our hotel, I stared with huge eyes at the towering city around me. Everything was so modern, so different from Mongolia. It was as if I was Dorothy just arriving in the Emerald City.

With uncertainty, I turned to my parents and asked, "Is Beijing as big as Ulaanbaatar?" My parents looked at each other and burst out laughing. During my parent's uproarious laughter, I realized it was a stupid question. My poor little Mongol brain just could not wrap around the massiveness of the glamorous Chinese city.

The next morning at our hotel, I pulled back the curtains, excited to look out on my new, beautiful city. 

The view stunned me. 

The Emerald City had, quite literally, turned green. It sounds a little like science fiction, but the air was saturated with a toxic tint that made me scream out to my parents. What could this be?! Is this the end of the world?! Death by green air slime?! My parents calmed me down and explained that a city with so many people could have a lot of challenges. That was why I wasn't allowed to drink the water from the tap either. Well, great. 

Cue Dorothy lifting the curtain and exposing the Big Bad Beijing Apocalypse. 

I'd like to say I'm exaggerating. 

I'd love to say, "Don't worry, guys! The Olympics made them clean up their act!" 

I'd even love to say, "Pshh, it's just a little pollution."

But it's really not a little pollution. Upon my return to Beijing, eleven years later, I learned that not much had changed. It's not as green anymore, but I think that's simply because they learned how to dye the air.

You don't believe me, you say? Okaaaaaay.

Example A 

Somedays, Leif and I hide in our bedroom because we see it filling up our living room. It makes the furniture seem like a mirage as the murky grey fills the room to overflowing. 

Example B

 If you download the China Air Index App, you will get a notification at least once a day telling you that the air is hazardous and dangerous to your health. You will also note that the American Embassy puts the pollution index much higher than the Chinese government puts it. For example, the American government may say 215 while the Chinese government says 70. Sure, China, sure.

Example C

Maybe you used to think you were in good shape, Beijing changed that. Ten minutes on your bike or five minutes running around and your lungs are burning. At first I just thought I'd really put on a few pounds over the summer. Then I realized my insides were actually in physical pain. Phew, bring on the donuts. 

Example D

You think it's a pleasant, overcast day. You hop on your bike. Suddenly, Chinese people are popping out of the smog like zombies and you realize it's actually a thick haze of pollution hiding every obstacle in the road. You're doomed. 

Example E

 Perhaps it's a nice, windy day. So much so that even the blue skies have come out of hiding. But then you see everyone who's foreign wearing a mask. You desperately want to run up and ask them, "What do you know that I don't know?! WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!" 

Example F

You have a perpetual environmental cough. People stare at you judgmentally. Yes, I'm a chain smoker. Yeah, I'm dying of lung cancer like Walt from Breaking Bad. No wait, I'm an asthmatic. Heck, I don't know what I am anymore.

That's the pervasiveness of the pollution in a nutshell. 

You must understand that no matter where I have lived, I have always waited anxiously for rainy days. They are my absolute favorite. They make everything clean and fresh once again. In Jordan, they would wash the dusty streets. In New York, it would make the world green again. In Washington, the rain was constant  and, so, my nighttime lullaby. And, even in Ohio, it would at least give me puddles to jump in. 

And now, in China, it turns out there is a way to briefly make the pollution disappear. Rain, glorious, rain. However, Beijing is far from what we would call a rainforest. Due to this fact, the government of China learned the dark magic of "cloud seeding." Cloud seeding is a form of intentional weather modification. They release chemicals in the air that serve as cloud condensation. Here in Beijing, they usually use rockets to send it off. Everyone is pretty aware it's happening. This is mostly done before a Chinese holiday or someone important is coming to visit Beijing. Yes, you read correctly, China can make it rain.

If Fat Joe and Lil' Wayne's song, "Make It Rain" immediately popped into your head, you are not alone. I sometimes imagine the Chinese government singing their own version with the chorus as something like this:

Yeah I'm in the town with the terror

Got a handful of kuai

Better grab an umbrella

I make it rain (I make it rain)

I make it rain on them schmoes, I make it rain (I make it rain)

I make it rain on them schmoes, I make it rain (I make it rain)

I make it rain on them schmoes, I make it rain (I make it rain)

I make it rain on them schmoes

In all seriousness, it astounds me every time that we, people,  can cause it to rain. That we can take the steps to clear the sludge out of our lives. And that we can make the choice to wash away old mistakes, beginning again. I am slowly learning that China has a lot of deep truths to teach, if I can just get through the haze. It has shown me that each day is a new beginning. Life is constantly changing around us. We may occasionally feel bogged down in the smog around us, but that doesn't mean tomorrow won't be entirely different. 

The winds may change, the rain may come, and the next day may be brighter.

For me, it has been most important to just keep breathing. When the world piles high its monstrosities, I just take a breath. Breathing is, after all, how we know we are still alive. And as my favorite poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote, 

"He lives most life whoever breathes most air."

Simple truths. Thanks, China.

I'm a Barbie Girl in a Porcelain World

I'm a girl, and with that comes the desire to be beautiful. 

Beauty is such a strange concept to me. It is ever-changing and hard to grasp. In America, you do what you can to keep up with the changing tides of fashion and beauty. For example, throughout my whole life the order of the day has been that an ideal beauty is glowing or sun-kissed. You know, tan. For those of us who have been given the curse in life to be eternally pale, we get used to the remarks. 

Wow, you are so white! 

Have you ever gone tanning? 

I know a really great tanning salon. 

Honestly, I don't blame them for their remarks. I know I'm not the stereotypical American beauty. That's been shown to be a tall, curvy, tan girl. Perhaps it would be what a real-life Barbie doll would look like. And, let's be real, that's just not me.

When I was eight year's old, I was given a special Mulan barbie doll. This doll was dressed in a silky white and pink kimono and had long dark hair. This wasn't what made her special though. It was her face. If you took a warm, wet cloth to it, a bright white face would appear with big dark eyes and a bright red smiling mouth. And as we know from the film, no longer was Mulan just a typical girl, she was a rare and porcelain beauty when dressed in this way.

The idea of a "porcelain beauty" confused me as I grew older. It went against everything I thought I knew about beauty. How could something considered "sickly" in America be considered something "stunning" somewhere else? And then...I moved to China. 

China is a beautiful place. It is filled with vibrant people, rich history, and a lot of good food. But one thing it is not filled with is white people. I am stared at whenever I am not in my apartment. Men, women, and children, they all stare. Not a creepy kind of stare like I often experienced in the Middle East - a curious, awed stare. Sometimes, I think they simply cannot believe that someone can look like me. It is not uncommon for me to be asked by random strangers to take pictures with them, as if I were some sort of celebrity. I am most frequently called beautiful, or...get this...barbie.

Barbie? Are they serious? How could I look like barbie? My American views of beauty scoffed at the idea. By the time I was called barbie for maybe the twentieth time, I realized perhaps their barbies were made differently than ours. Perhaps their barbies reflect their own sense of beauty - the "porcelain beauty."

Ironically, I soon learned China is the birthplace of porcelain-making. I also learned that porcelain is not something that just is -- it is something crafted. It is crafted by meticulously heating materials to a temperature of about 1,200 °C. The strength and translucence of the porcelain arises from the formation of glass at these high temperatures. 

Clearly it takes a great deal of work to achieve beautiful porcelain. And, sadly, this is something I have seen true of the Chinese version of beauty. I have had students ask me how to become thinner. I have heard students say they will never find a husband because they are so tall. I have heard students say their mothers tell them not to eat when they are becoming too heavy. It is this constant desire to perfect themselves into an ideal beauty. And they are ever afraid of failing.

Western influence has even become a part of this image. Those who have money take drastic steps. For the Chinese, South Korea is often viewed as the land of plastic surgery. They can have the crease put into their eyelids to look more Western. Not only that, but also have the bridge of their nose heightened and their foreheads enlarged all to imitate their idea of true beauty. The stores of Beijing are stocked with whitening soaps and lotions that claim they can take skin and make it beautifully white. 

I am reminded once again of the oppressiveness of my own culture. It's ability to creep into every culture honestly scares me. A people that is so beautiful is literally altering their bodies to become more like me. All the while, I have been altering myself to look more like some other form of ideal beauty. What a sick cycle.

It is time to wake up. It is time to see that we were created beautifully.  There is no possible way to meet the "world's standard" because the world does not have a standard. Each one of us has been through fire in our lives. Maybe it was a death of a close friend or family member, a hard break-up, or cruel words. It is time to see that these heartaches have made us stronger and even more beautiful. We are the precious porcelain on the other side of the fire and are the very definition of beautiful because of that. 

You know, with that in mind, I'm proud to be a porcelain beauty.