Two overwhelming and simultaneous feelings envelope me when I arrive in Nanjing: I feel both stagnate and transformed. Life continues as though nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. It seems as if I’ve taken a time machine back a few years, to another world that is now foreign to me; yet it feels like time is standing still and everything around me is frozen in place. This cognitive dissonance is one of the most difficult aspects for me when I go from China to the US and back again: on the one hand, everything is the same as I left it and life goes on as normal, seemingly as if nothing has changed. This is comforting on many levels because I know everything will still be there when I come back, and unnerving because my presence seems inconsequential at times. At the same time, I’ve had to say goodbye to countless friends each time I move, many friends that I may never see again. And inevitably, like all friendships, I’ve watched many of my friendships dissolve simply because of the time and space between us. Change is scary, but inevitable.
This time around, I’m back in Nanjing. I’m in the same house, in the same neighborhood with the same roommate and same host family from my Fulbright research (when I was writing on this blog before) from 2011-2012. The same noodle shop is serving the same salty soup with soy sauce, pickled vegetables, and a huge slab of fatty pork. The duck blood soup restaurant down the street is serving exactly the same dumplings and soup with liver and kidney, owned by the friendly auntie and uncle who I chat with about their daughters’ marriage prospects (though one of their daughters is married now). The same street food vendors are selling fried tofu and fried bananas on a stick. The same scandalous shows by the city wall are attracting crowds of hypnotized men. The same vegetable sellers are screaming about their products ("Tomatoes! 5 kuai! Cabbage! 3 kuai!") as they ride their tricycles through the alleys in the morning. Their voices haven’t changed at all--they’re still announcing the price of their potatoes and bok choy in the exact same voice, intonation, and cadence as I remember. It’s kind of eery, yet comforting at the same time.
The same scrap collector gathers recyclable materials, and the same fights ensue between my neighbors. I go to the the same public toilet and shower house. The shower house auntie still remembers me, and we catch up about her son and my school work. The same people play mahjong for hours every day. The same old ladies do their daily exercises of slapping various parts of their body in the pagoda by the river at 9 am each morning. The neighborhood is filled with the same sounds of motorbikes speeding past and cars honking their horns. The same buses barrel past at dangerous speeds. The same bicycles weave through the alleyways. The same bird at my next-door neighbor’s squawks out a few Chinese phrases: "Nihao! Gongxi Facai!" (Hello! Wishing you good fortune!). I eat the same spicy Muslim noodles and talk to the same fruit sellers, especially the old woman with the gap-toothed smile and friendly enthusiasm; I walk the same routes through town and the same markets. I eat the same steaming bowl of spicy fried rice from the same carts that spring up early in the morning and late at night. I smell the same sewage smell. I read the same posters threatening demolition that never comes.
And there are a lot of differences in the neighborhood too, of course. The neighbors next door lost their grandma but welcomed in a new baby 2 months ago. Grandma Wang is no longer operating her second-hand shop, though when she rides by me on her motorbike she stops to catch up with me. The other next door neighbors’ daughter is in 3rd grade now, and as independent and sassy as ever. My roommate Xie Rui, 22-years old now, has graduated and is working several odd jobs trying to keep ends meet--one tutoring middle school students and one working at a fruit stand--and finding herself bored with her jobs and her life. My host family is planning on moving into a new apartment next year. The houses on the other side of town have been demolished and a ritzy tourist attraction with fake “old” houses has been built in their place, with shops selling expensive Buddhist-inspired decor and jade jewelry, complete with a Starbucks and a German restaurant. Here is a photo of the new "old town":
Some businesses have closed and new ones have opened in their place, and the frantic pace of development brought on by building a new subway for the 2014 Youth Olympics has slowed a bit. There is still ongoing demolition in various parts of the neighborhood, complete with bulldozers and piles of rubble. My neighbors continue to wait eagerly for demolition and the compensation that will come with it. One of the young girls down the street has moved to another city for work. The kids have grown taller.
Some businesses have closed and new ones have opened in their place, and the frantic pace of development brought on by building a new subway for the 2014 Youth Olympics has slowed a bit. There is still ongoing demolition in various parts of the neighborhood, complete with bulldozers and piles of rubble. My neighbors continue to wait eagerly for demolition and the compensation that will come with it. One of the young girls down the street has moved to another city for work. The kids have grown taller.
And I’ve changed too.
I’m no longer a long-term resident here. It’s a different feeling, less like being around friends and family, and more as though passing by acquaintances. It’s awkward that way. Not with my roommate or my next-door neighbors: to me they are still family. But with everyone else. There’s a distance, perhaps more on my part than anyone else. I’m just passing through this time. I do hope to bring Xie Rui and Zhang Chongyang to the States someday, even if it’s just for travel. But I don’t have the same kind of investment in this place and its people anymore, which creates a natural drift. My research project has moved to the opposite side of the country, and my focus has changed from demolition and displacement to migration and identity. It’s no longer my home. It feels like home in some ways, but… then it feels more like I’m a traveler passing through on a journey, not like I’m settled here the way I was before.
As (one of) my favorite saying goes: life is a journey, not a destination. Yet I find myself surprisingly bored, and eager to move on to the next adventure.
I still have so much to learn and discover and experience. I’m so excited for this next chapter of my life and for this new journey to begin. I’m excited to spend the next 5 months in western China. I’m excited to go back to Boulder in the fall and continue jiujitsu and school there. I have my whole life ahead of me and there’s no time to waste. The world is my oyster and I’m not taking anything for granted.
When I turned 26 this year, it was the first time I felt kind of old, and I felt happy to be old because I felt mature, like a real grown up with my own life trajectory with nothing holding me back. At the same time, I realized, as I do every year on my birthday: time flies. Which means there is nothing I can do but live in and enjoy the present moment. And that is my main objective in life right now, to enjoy and live in the moment. That and remember:
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Always. Nothing more true than this. It’s scary but worth it. Nothing in life worth having comes easy.
Over and out.
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