Cicadas, Part II

I was first greeted with the gentle ROARS of summer cicadas soon after I arrived in China last year.  As a native of the American Pacific Northwest, I had no exposure to the purr of these giant insects that sounded like they could chew your fingers off.  This post describes my first impressions of them, and some lessons I learned from them.  During my second week in China, I was grocery shopping with a student in a huge store.  As we passed the jade-jewelry counter I saw a carved bug, a cicada, the crunchy creature responsible for the inescapable cacophony outside.  I asked her, "Why this...?" and she laughed.  She said it was because of the proverb: 'You will sing again.'  Cicadas die off when the weather gets cold, but they always return in full voice when their time comes.

In this past year, I've experienced a lifetime worth of adventures.  I've climbed mountains, gotten lost in foreign cities (at night), sang for rich and powerful men and women, and counted stars with strangers from distant lands.  I've watched clouds pour into a volcanic crater and released paper lanterns into the crisp, winter night.  All of these wonders contrast sharply with the struggle of the past few months.

In my last post, I mentioned I had a significant loss at the end of August.  I was overwhelmed, lost, and feeling the pressure of preparing to move to another country.  Nothing could distract my feelings, but I had to find a way to function.  I filled my days with stories – TV and movies played while I packed, and I read before going to sleep.  I went to bed early, and I got up late, whispering to myself, “Don’t think about it, it didn’t happen, don’t think, don’t think, don’t think…”

One night I woke up groggy, which is pretty unusual for me.*  I’m not a perky, early-riser, but I always wake up with a clear mind.  I know where I am, what day it is, and how many times I’ve hit ‘snooze.’  That night, I woke up fuzzy, and I didn’t like it.  I turned over once or twice, and couldn’t go back to sleep.  (Which is also really unusual for me.)  It was 2am, and everyone was asleep.  It was too late to get up and do late night chores, and too early to call and early morning.  I kept remembering verses about studying scripture by night, but that book is awfully big.  ‘Where would I even start?’ I wondered.  Jeremiah 29.  BAM.  There it was, out of nowhere.  Jeremiah 29.  The reference carried no special meaning to me, I didn’t associate it with any particular passage.  Jeremiah 29.  “It doesn’t work that way,” I thought.  “Jeremiah is in my mind because my friend mentioned it the other day, and 29 is an arbitrary number that I saw on TV, or written on a box somewhere.”  I’m stubborn, and I don't think the open-the-Bible-and-find-your-future approach is a very effective form of Bible study.  So there I lay.  Resisting.  Stubbornly.  For two hours.  Two hours of tears, and dark silence, as the pain in my heart tried to claw its way out of my chest.

"FINE."  I said finally as I whipped back my covers and thumped my Bible down angrily on the bed beside me.  Jeremiah 29 is a message from God to the Israelites as they are being led off into exile.  As they go, He told them this:

"Build houses, settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce; marry and have sons and daughters...you must increase there and not decrease.  Work for the good of the city to which I have exiled you; pray to Yahweh on its behalf, since on its welfare yours depends.  For Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: Do not be deceived by the prophets who are with your or by your diviners; do not listen to the dreams you have, since they prophesy lies to you in my name.  I have not sent them, Yahweh declares.  For Yahweh says this: When the seventy years granted to Babylon are over, I shall intervene on your behalf and fulfill my favorable promise to you by bringing you back to this place."

[And then everyone's favorite verse, featured on Thomas Kinkade paintings

and thousands of cross-stich pillows:]

"For I know what plans I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

[End cross-stitch quote, add some flowers.] 

When you call to me and come and pray to me, I shall listen to you.  When you search for me, you will find me; when you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me...I will gather you in from all the nations and wherever I have driven you. Yahweh declares.  I shall bring you back to the place from which I exiled you."

 I was surprised to have landed on the familiar passage, but what moved me to tears were the verses preceding it: "When the seventy years granted to Babylon are over, I shall intervene on your behalf and fulfill my favorable promise to you by bringing you back to this place."  Restoration, coming back to the place I love, all my ragged edges soothed.

I'm fully aware that this passage was NOT written for me.  I don't think God has exiled me to China, and I don't think He's telling me to marry someone here, or that I'll be here for seventy years.  Like the Israelites, I've been taken from something I loved, and all my hopes, dreams, and wishes can't bring it back to me.  I exiled from that place, and I need to love the stage I'm in.  When the time is full and ripe (a symbolic 70 years) God will restore me to my place.

This promise has been encouraging, confusing, uplifting, and frustrating.  I want to DO something to get out of this stage I'm in, not LOVE IT.  I'm glad God will restore me, but sometimes I still want an explanation about why it was necessary in the first place.  As I've mulled over this passage for the past few months, a few things have become clear:

• I have to work for the betterment of the world I'm in.  That includes my community, my school, and the life-space I'm in.
• Romance is not waiting just around the corner...
• ...but that will change someday.
• When the time is right, God will orchestrate my restoration, not me.

When I first learned the proverb about the cicada, I had a feeling it would be significant to me, but I wasn't sure how.  Now I know: this is a season of quiet for my heart.  I don't want it to be this way, but having it clarified helps me put that topic on the back burner.  Someday I'll be restored.  To that person?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  What I know for certain is that there is a defined plan for this need.

This fall, every roaring wave of insect sounds landed with a splash of promise.  There's a plan; it's going to happen; God is on it.  After months of focused hunting and deliberation, I found my most personal memento of my time here in China: a carved jade cicada.  When the summer cicadas sang, I said, 'God, I hear that promise, and I'll remember it.'  Now winter is approaching.  Every day I wear my cicada and think, 'God, it's a quiet season, but I still remember what You said.'  For now, I throw myself into my work and my community, trying to learn how to live a full, honorable life in this place.

*I can count on both hands how many times I’ve felt confused upon waking.

Things I Forgot I Love About China

• The Chinese are the nicest people in the world.  Chinese people are really great at living in large groups.  They avoid conflict like the plague, which means that you never hear, "No offense, but..." or "In my opinion..." and rarely is there a pointed comment.  They also bend over backwards to communicate accurately with you, random strangers extend themselves to help you, and they smile all the time.  It's just so nice!
• Cicadas.  The sound of these insects remind me of promises of restoration, the passing of seasons and hope.  Every time I hear them, I'm encouraged that there is a future ahead.
• Students turning in papers.  (This IS actually specific to China.)  When students turn in papers, they're obsessively neat about it.  They're always face-up, stacked in the same direction.  American students might try throwing their homework in the general area of the turn-in basket.  If you ask, Chinese students will even organize their homework according to their student numbers.  Grading bliss!
• Squattie-potties.  Ergonomically satisfying.  The End.*
• A stranger in a crowd.  There are different kinds of anonymity in your home country and in a foreign country.  In America, I'm no one special, and I blend in without question.  However, anyone at any point in time might start up a conversation.  In China, I'm ALWAYS a novelty, but rarely does anyone initiate a conversation with me.  I can be surrounded on all sides by hundreds of people, and be socially alone.  It's kind of nice in a way.  I'm present and involved in the community, but my thoughts and reflections are free to roam wherever they want.  It's nice.
• My coffee people.  There's a cafe in my building that I frequent often.  The people there are just fantastic, and I consider them personal friends.  They seemed just as excited to see me as I was to see them, even though I've only bought one cup of coffee so far.... Points to me for kicking a habit!
• Common touch.  People are always bumping into one another here.  This was something I absolutely hated when I first got to China, but now I love it.  It says, 'You're one of the crowd, you belong here.'
• Attentive listening.  When a Chinese person is interested in what you're saying.  They lock their eyes on your face and don't hardly move.  They are completely engrossed in your words and try to suck all possible meaning from it.  It's amazingly respectful and refreshing.
• Common sense problem-solving.  "Oh, you want this kind of cell phone case, with that kind of wrap?  Here, I'll glue it together."  ...that fix was way too easy to have occurred to me.
• FOOD.  American food is awesome, but there are some things that will simply never be the same unless you buy it from that one vendor one that one street corner.

*Pun really really intended

Cicadas, Part I

The first time I went outside during the day I was greeted by waves of harsh, grating sound.  I thought, "This has got to be the WORST PA sound test that I've ever heard.  Why couldn't they pick something more pleasant?"  It was a strange PA test though, because the sound would fade in and out, and echo at irregular intervals all over campus.  It sounded like someone's memory being erased in a sci-fi movie, or a giant rainstick on steroids magnified through a microphone.  The sound was loud, consuming, and distracting, but no one seemed to notice it.  After several hours, I finally asked someone, "What IS that sound?"  The woman jumped and smiled - I got the feeling that she had forgotten how foreign the sound seemed at first.  Then she told me:

CICADAS.

A Bug.  A reasonably large bug, but really?  That level of sound was excessive!  It's smaller than the breadth of your palm, but the output of sound is phenomenal.  I looked it up on youtube to give you an idea of what it sounds like, but the recordings don't give a true scale of the overall VOLUME of sound.  It was deafening.  I had arrived in the dry season, when cicadas thrive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DOWm9IBGoY

I was at Waka one day looking at the jade work in the jewelry counters.  I love the color green and beautiful things - the variety and craftsmanship of jade ornaments is so interesting!  I was looking at various carvings and saw one that looked....just like a bug.  The idea of wearing an insect pennant wasn't innately appealing to me, so I asked my Chinese host about it.  She told me it was a cicada, but I still couldn't see why you'd want to wear a cicada.  Then she told me that many animals are symbols.  Cicadas are a seasonal insect.  During the dry season, they multiply and command the world's attention with their song, but as soon as the rains begin, they fade away.  To the Chinese, a cicada symbolizes biding time.  You may be silent now, but in time, the world will hear your song.  I found the concept quietly reassuring.  Maybe a quiet season in a person's life isn't due to their lack or inability.  Maybe it just isn't their season to sing.  But with it comes the promise your time will come.  Conversely, it also teaches your time will also go.  I like the idea of embracing the season you're in - you won't be there forever.