Facing Gunfire at Christmas

I've been on a writing hiatus for quite a while now due to finals, rehearsals, food poisoning, and late-night Chinese classes.  I have so many wonderful things to talk about - a trip to the grottoes in Luoyang, sharing Jesus with students, teaching about the meaning of Christmas, and the many adventures I'm having with students and fellow teachers.

But unfortunately, what's causing me to break my writing-silence are the shootings in Portland and Connecticut.  For the last two weeks I've been telling my students about the celebration of peace and joy that is Christmas - the feeling in the air, the suspense of children, and the kindness of strangers.  Then I read about the shooting at Clackamas Town Center, MY mall, the place where I go for everything - work, studying for school, hanging out with friends, preparing for life, food.  It's one of my comfort zones.  Also, it's really close to my house and my high school.  When I heard, I immediately began shuffling through the list of everyone I know who works there, including all my coworkers at WHBM, my personal shoppers, and my favorite baristas, not to mention the people I know who shop there.  At CHRISTMAS TIME.

Then there was the shooting in Connecticut.  I don't even know how to comment on that.  How can you make sense of the shooting of children?  There's no sense to be had.  Just awful, awful pain.

And yet - unless we personally know the victims, our cycle of grief is removed a step, and we [referring to all American residents and citizens with the collective 'we'] leap from shock to anger in a single bound.  Anger is easier than grief.  We then try to use these horrific tragedies as a platform to enact political change.  But, as with anything political, we can hardly utter an idea without another person feeling nobly inclined to rip our throats out.  So what do we get?  Devastating murders and citizens who respond with contention and slashing words.

Gun control.  The first response is always gun control.  Here's my thought: if a person is a cutter, and you take away the knife, obviously they can no longer cut their body -- but they still carry self-destruction in their hearts.  This is a one-dimensional result.  If we want to protect our citizens, why don't we immediately think of increasing services for those who hurt and increasing security for those who are healthy?  Probably because it's more expensive and feels less productive than passing a law.  Every time we pass a law, we set a precedent.  Currently, I presume that my government wants to protect me.  If armed police invade my house, I know they're on my side.  History shows us that this isn't always the case.  Please, please remember your global history lessons: what happens when the government has all the firepower and the people are defenseless?  Simple answer: bad stuff.  The hurried changes in law made in response to pain can lay the ground work for future governmental action that no one wants.

In another forum, a complete stranger made a cutting comment, asking how I 'attended the needs' of other people.  I think this is a good thing for all people to think about.  In the past 10 years, I've been a photographer, a barista, a singer, a cook, a student, a teacher, and I've sold a whole lot of clothes.  I have witnessed the happiness, pain, confusion, disillusionment, surprise, and tears of other people in every one of those jobs.  (Okay, I've never seen a cook cry, but that's the only exception.)  Distant husbands, fear for children, the ache of loneliness and being left behind, the quiet dullness of being unnoticed, and the even quieter panic of feeling alone in your fear - you see it at different levels every day of your life if you look at people's faces.  Look at people!  Empathize! Use your face to communicate that you see them.  Speak more kindly.  A genuine 'How are you?' will prompt a true response.  If you aren't getting a real response, you need to learn how to really ask.  Then when they tell you, listen to what they say!

All of the sudden, that person isn't invisible anymore. They aren't on their own.  They can square their shoulders and face another day. This is how we 'attend the needs' of others.

As I've shared the Christmas story these past two weeks, I've said repeatedly that Jesus was born poor because God was showing that he wanted ALL the people, from the uneducated local shepherds to the highly educated powerful kings from distant lands.  This Christmas we have a unique opportunity to grieve with our country in the light of these terrible shootings.  As representative of Christ, our job isn't to tell people, 'It's okay, God can fix it.'  Is that true? Of course!  But if our only response to grief is knowledge-based, or anger-based, then people don't see God's heart of empathy for people.

The willingness to see one another, and in this time, to grieve with one another - friends and strangers alike - shows that Christ is alive in us.  God is not absent just because evil is present.  I encourage everyone (including myself now) to step away from political discussion for at least a week following these events. Be especially encouraging and thoughtful of those who have a lot of vocational human interaction: teachers, pastors, baristas (the pastors of non-church-goers), and waiters.  Let's use the light of gunfire to see the lives of people around us.  Go attend to people.

Sunshine Boys and Happiness Girls

My students have a weekly “English Journal” assignment.  They talk in English for an hour, then write a few sentences down about their conversation.  The lower level students tend to talk about the same things every week: what they ate, what sports they played, and how much they love their friends.  The higher level student might talk about goals and aspirations, politics, philosophy, or describe their perspective on life values.  (Reading these journals also makes me realize what a poor language student I was in high school.  My journals must have been torturous to read.)  This first unit has been all about descriptions of nouns (person place or thing, for those of you who haven’t taken English in a while).  I really enjoyed the ‘Describing People’ week.  I spent the first half of class teaching vocab: tall, short, fat, skinny, blonde, brunette, curly, wavy...  We played games for the second half of class, describing various pictures and guessing who was who.  I figured that if I was going to look at the same people all week, I might as well look at people I liked…so I printed out pictures of a variety of people, and put up a few of my favorites!  It was so funny to hear my Chinese students’ perception of different people in my world, and it was even funnier to hear their gasps of astonishment when I told them, ‘This is my dad, this is my best friend, this is my boss…’ and they realized they had been talking freely about people I cared about!

I started noticing trends in the descriptions throughout the week as I listened in class, and read about the ideal man/woman in their English Journals.  My take-away Chinglish phrases of the week were “I am a happiness girl,” and “He is my sunshine boy.”  Happiness girls and sunshine boys – what a darling image.

Couples watching in China is fascinating.  The most striking (and initially disconcerting) feature of Chinese couples: they match.  Not their faces – their clothes.  Then I started noticing that female friends also wore matching outfits.  At first I thought they were work uniforms, but oh no.  From the panda sweatshirt down to the buckled shoes, they match to a T.  (Ok, boys and girls wear different shoes, but the rest of the outfit will match.)  In fact, many items are sold as sets.  When I was shopping for a watch (a necessary purchase when you have a stinky phone) there were several that were sold as his/hers matching sets.  I asked a Chinese student if it was a sign of a deeply committed relationship.  She said, “No, we just buy it.  He will buy it for you.”  Then there’s the purse holding.  In China, a boyfriend will carry his girlfriend’s purse for her.  There’s nothing un-masculine about it; he’s taking care of his lady.  I HAVE heard of cases where a boyfriend will carry his own matching purse.   ….yeah, I think that crosses a line.

At first, my American vision saw this as bizarre and vaguely creepy.  However, the more I see it, the more it strikes me as incredibly sweet.  I can’t begin to describe how stressful the dating process is in America.  Does he/she like me?  If I tell her, will it be too strong/nonchalant/needy/cold/vague/demanding/blah blah blah blah… There’s a void where dating protocol should be (unless you court, which creates immediate and intense expectations), leading to a whole lot of vagueness, misunderstandings, and a lack of willingness for either person to simply stand up and say, “Hey.  I like you. Do you want to go out?”  When I look at Chinese couples, I see people who are clearly telling the world,

“I like THIS ONE.  I want to be with them.  I like being associated with them.  I want us to be similar.  I want us to belong to each other.  I will invest my hard-earned kuai into building a connection with this person so that everyone can see without a shadow of a doubt that I love them.”

There is something to be said for that.

There are many things about my dearest friends that I would love to emulate, but we strive to be different and unique.  We consider it a confidence to tell a person, ‘I want to be like you.’  Why is that?  The process of Chinese wooing is pretty amazing; flowers, presents, fireworks just to make a girl to smile…of course girls see their men as ‘sunshine boys!’ 

I was talking about this with a friend the other day, and she asked me if I was going to match with a boyfriend someday.  HECK NO!  But I do have my eye on an awesome watch set…  I’m an American girl.  I don’t expect a man to carry my purse, and I kinda really don’t want him to wear the same outfit as me.  Something about it just doesn’t scream “MASCULINE.”  But I would gladly trade in the vague haze of interest for a straightforward statement.  Coming from the right person, that alone would make me a happiness girl.     

**It is also interesting to note that yang (as in yin-yang) is a masculine feng-shui element associated with the color white, metal, the sun, and warmth.  I believe that a ‘sunshine boy’ is a way of describing a truly masculine, warm, man.