2013 J Street Conference - Inspiring and Depressing Both at the Same Time

Is Jstreet about pressuring Israel, or is it about pressuring the American government to pressure Israel? With American and Israeli politics so intertwined, only a fine line separates them, but it is an important distinction to make.  As an Israeli at Jstreet this week, I was always perplexed by the question “how Israeli are you? Full, half or quarter Israeli?” Since I speak English with an American accent they had to check my bona-fides, since no “true” Israeli can speak good English.  “So, did you actually serve?” was the question that always followed. I couldn’t help but see the irony in a bunch of American, liberal college students who came to a “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” conference who were measuring my “Israeliness” by serving in the army.

When I moved to the US from Israel three years ago I wanted nothing to do with Israelis or Judaism, but when I learned that a conservative synagogue would take a non-believing heathen, as I had been called by Israeli Jews, to be a Sunday school teacher, I had to check it out. My romance with the local Jewish community has lasted since then, because I learned that here Judaism is about identity before it is about belief and that it’s about “Bein Adam LeHavero” before it is about “Bein Adam LeMakom”. As a liberal Zionist Israeli, I was relieved to learn that a liberal Judaism and a Jstreet existed.

The JstreetU students who attended the conference came because they were passionate about the justness of the cause.  They wanted to learn how to pressure Israel to do the right thing.  At every Q&A I attended, a similar question was consistently asked by a student to an Israeli speaker: “what can we do to pressure Israel from here?” They wanted a clear cut answer to what the role of American Jewry was. But Jstreet is an American lobby born as a reaction to AIPAC in order to speak about liberal Jewish values and connect them to Israel.  It’s about pressuring American Congressmen and Senators to pressure Israel, it’s about American taxpayer money going to Israel, and most of all it’s about caring deeply about Israel. But Americans don’t vote in Israel, they don’t pay taxes in Israel, and they don’t serve in the army.  When one “half-Israeli” college student asked me how Israeli I was, I asked if he intended to go back and serve in the army. His reply said it all: “Hell NO, and it’s not even ideological, I just don’t have time for that”. I then understood that the fight about Israel wasn’t about Israel, it was about giving liberal American Jews an identity that they could sympathize, reinvigorate and recruit for.  It was about having a cause, but not necessarily about the cause itself.

In 2002, the year before my IDF service, the high-school senior letter, Michtav HaShministim, which called for Israelis to refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, came out, and the Intifada was at its height. My brother was serving in Hebron, and had secluded himself from the world when coming home, to ensure that he wouldn’t have to share the burden of his duties with others.  As a leftist activist at the time I faced a dilemma, and had to make a conscious choice to serve. What was annoying about this student’s dismissal was not that he didn’t serve like me, I don’t expect him to, it was the dismissal of the dilemma. In a latest Pew Poll about American Jewry, 69 percent said that being Jewish means “Leading an ethical life” and 56 percent said it was about “working for justice/equality”.  The core of these Jewish values is the skepticism and the dilemmas that come with them.  But the young Americans Jews at this conference had forgotten that the question of Israel is not just about a cause and a mythical land on the other side of the Atlantic they visit every once in awhile, it’s about people with real lives, and real dilemmas, and real consequences.

 It was inspiring to see so many Americans talk about peace in Israel at the Jstreet conference. At the same time it was saddening to think of Israel’s Rabin Square not filling up this coming Rabin memorial with tens of thousands of Israelis who are as pro-peace as these Americans are.  When Stav Shaffir talked about the social protests, the twittersphere pressured her to talk about peace, not the socio-economic issues.  They came to the conference to hear about peace, not the “other stuff”, but the only thing that has filled the Rabin Square lately, was exactly the “other stuff”.  I don’t blame these young American Jewish idealists for the “disconnect”, it is only natural that as Americans they don’t see the entire reality of Israel.  They don’t live in it.  I only ask that they remember that Jstreet is about putting pressure on the American administration to put pressure on the Israeli administration.  If they want to apply direct pressure, they need to be in Israel, and fill up the Square themselves.

 

 

Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how yet, there’s an innate difference between when the kid sitting next to you on your flight is screaming in a language you know or in a foreign one.  It has something to do with empathy, guilt, and recognizing where he’s coming from, that in a foreign language just isn’t there.  At least not at first.  But then he smiles and looks outside the window, distracted by the endless clouds, or brushes his fingers against your arm hair, because his curiosity overcame the common etiquette his father had taught him. 

Cross cultural communication begins at that exact moment, when curiosity overcomes the taboos, when the desire to fully encounter the other overcomes the do’s and don’ts that you were taught.  Its when you can finally see beyond the mumble of unrecognizable words and sounds.  It’s when you recognize something so basic, an observation that transcends the simplicity of conversing and allows you see who the person in front of you is.

But that moment of innate humanity and empathy that you had worked on so hard in order to see through that mumble of incoherence, is also limited in its scope.  It can’t overwhelm you into endless conversations about the world, it can’t reach the other person to the depths of their souls, and it can’t even tell you that what you see is wrong.  Because it’s only about what you see, and not about what the other person tries to tell you.

Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how yet, this is how I feel about my month and a half in China and Laos.  It had more to do with what I was able to see and experience, than about the people themselves.  It had more to do with my desire to explore, than my desire to change. 

And at the end of the day, I’m ok with that.  There’s a time and place for everything, and maybe I should save change for places that I can really make a difference.

 

I’m heading home now for a healthy dose of reality, something I haven’t had in three months. 

Happy Birthday to me.

Where the old and the new collide

Beijing. Bei mothafuckin’ jing. Where the streets don’t smell like sewage and the subway has English just below those gibrishy characters I can’t understand.  Where the streets are filled with the flashy and familiar KFC and Micky D’s signs, where Chinese bakeries put ketchup on a croissant and Smoothie stores sell grapefruit sense ice tea, where both noodles and rice are a constant staple, and where baozi and mantou are sold from every street corner. And grilled scorpion on a skewer, of course (which apparently is not really a Chinese dish, but rather something you sell to stupid Orientalist foreigners who think that’s what Chinese eat). Sichuan, Yunan, or Tibeten, Jamaican, Korean or German food are all just around the corner.  You name it, it’s here.  Where the skyscrapers collide with the Houtongs, and the cranes are no longer a looming presence upon us, reminding us that everywhere in the west is still growing and growing but Beijing has hit its development peak. Coming back to the east coast after a month in the western Chinese frontier, I can finally see what the west will look like in the near future, only the western version is, as Daft Punk would put it - harder better faster stronger. 

In Beijing, the first thing we did was shopping, of course.  The students had longed for a stint of plain western consumerism from the moment we landed in Guangzhou, on our first day in China.  Reluctantly, we allowed for it to happen at the grandiose Silk Market, which is definitely not silky and not really a market.  They went bargaining for western knock-offs for ridiculous prices, while I enjoyed a nice cold beer in the ally below.  We continued for a night in the touristy night market, where they sell kitschy touristy bullshit for outrageous prices selling you a Chinese experience that is probably foreign to most Chinese people.  But it’s a staple in Beijing, so we gots to do, what we gots to do. The high rises ceased to be the kind of hastily built, monotonous, buildings we had seen out west, but rather the skyscrapers in Beijing merged together into a cohesive assortment of well zoned areas and buildings.  The order of the buildings made sense, the roads were wide, the sidewalks existed and the shopping malls weren’t shoved vicariously underground, but rather placed with some intention to promote the pure essence of the area – consumerism. 

The next day I had the chance to wander off by myself again.  The area we are in is the older part of Beijing with many Houtongs, which are small, narrow alley ways.  The zoning restrictions declared the area to be of historical value, and forbade the building of high rises here.  Every other alley has a public bathroom because they don’t have running water in their houses.  Twenty minutes away from that center of grotesque lavishness, there was also an appreciation towards a historical way of living.  Whether that’s good or not is irrelevant (at least for this post), but that a city with such history cherishes not only the emperors’ palaces and gardens, but the lowers classes current lifestyles was something I had not seen until now.

The development in Western China we had seen for the past three weeks was beyond colossal.  I wish I had counted the amount of cranes I had seen on this trip, but the statistics I had seen stated that around 45,000 skyscrapers will be built in China by 2025. Beijing seems to be beyond that point.  With a western GDP per capita, and infinite amounts of consumer choices, but also a deep sense of history and antiquity it allows the deeper tensions we had experienced in the western regions to dissipate.  The Han vs. Tibetan and Hui, the modernity vs. tradition, the individualism vs, collectivism, all of which we struggled with to find balance between no longer exist in Beijing.  Here one side has been declared victorious already, and we can just enjoy the ride from here on out. 

And maybe it’s because of the Israeli blood that runs through my veins, but I sure do love them tensions.  And although I love the city, and the consumerism and the comfort, I would choose the west of China over the east in a heartbeat.  I’d take a vivid, clashing contrast of a dynamic frontier over a placid, decadent, flat lined city. Any day.

At the sacred cave we visited outside Labrang, there was one moment when the darkness surrounded us.  We had ventured (at least into what felt like) down to the belly of the earth, where the gentle rays of the sun could no longer reach us. Our headlamps guided us through our fears, and our peers alleviated our spirits from the natural ponderings of “what ifs” and our hidden memories of childhood ghost stories. We turned off our headlamps and abruptly ended our relieving chitter chatter to give room for the darkness to sink in.  Having our eyes open or closed changed nothing, and we had to learn to see without our eyes.  A tender drip of water on my rain jacket became an explosive sound and the calm flow of water in the nearby underground stream roared into my ears.  The scent of mildew in the air plunged through my nostrils going deep into my lungs, painstakingly reminding me of my asthmatic, feeble body’s twofold attitude to the air we breathe – as the barer of life but also of tiny particles making it harder for the air to be absorbed.  I grabbed the earth underneath me to feel stable, to rely on the only solidity I knew would vanquish my unearthed fears. The aroma of salt arose as I crumbled the limestone through my fingers, allowing the firmness of the rock to ground me.  A quiet squeak of rubber rubbing onto that same ground I was seizing, no more than three feet away, quieted my fears and allowed me finally to take in the experience as I had wanted to – with awe and amazement.

I had never been to China before, and I don’t speak the language, and yet I am leading a group of ten teenagers in this foreign and forgiving land.  Since I lack the most basic of communication skills I am left to rely on my other senses.  I speak with my hands and exaggerate my facial expressions.  I hop on every chance I get to show my good intentions to the people here.  I look for opportunities to communicate through doing, instead of being, whether it is cooking in the kitchen, or playing soccer with the kids on the street.  Similar my conclusions from the cave, I find that only upon losing the sense we rely on the most can we discover and explore the world and ourselves in a different way.  The challenges I have been required to overcome would have seemed the most simplistic in a language I control fluidly: paying a taxi driver the correct amount, buying coffee without milk or sugar.  But this inability or lack of fluent communication has allowed me to see the very things my eyesight would have so easily skipped over.  As my co-staff both speak fluently, I am the one who tends to wonder and wander off during the incomprehensible conversations that fly over my head, and I seek to figure out this unfamiliar land with my over accentuated sense of non-verbal communication. How I have come to value the precious time that comes with the lack of understanding.  It allows me to notice the little things that I never would have taken the time to really see: The homes that are built from brick and mud interchangeably;  The shelves in the homes haphazardly arranged by string hanging from the ceiling; The electricity sockets sticking out of the wall nonchalantly; The washing machine that needs to moved outside to the central communal space because it’s the only place with running water; The visibly photo shopped center piece in the living room of a traditional Tibetan artist’s house;  The shiny color of a spicy red pepper;  The delicate stench of grey water coming from the massive water infrastructure the flows freely in the streets.  The stark contrast that arises from every vantage point combining sacredness and trash, history and development, a sense of past and future that merges into this newly found modernity that is similar to ours, and yet remains so foreign.

What’s the opposite of being a reactionary? Or, cultural dilemmas in a foreign land

What’s the opposite of being a reactionary? Or, cultural dilemmas in a foreign land.

 

When you read about China, the first word that pops from the page is development.   From a classic economic standpoint, development has one single measure – GDP growth, and one simple question comes with it– how to grow the output of the economy at the fastest pace possible? It seems that at an average growth rate of close to ten percent in the last thirty years – China knows what it’s doing.  But as an observer of society, using economics as a tool and not an end as of itself my question is different – how can people use the tools at their disposal to make their lives better?  Money is definitely one of those tools, but it’s not the only one.  This question is a little harder because the measurement for a better life is diverse and often changing.  GDP simplifies things, but then again, I was never one to go for simplicity.

While walking around the streets of Xiahe, which includes an ancient but still active Tibetan monastery by the name of Labrang, the question of how people want to make their lives better comes into the direct view.  People are building, and building and building.  Every other street is unpaved because of the construction work, and they work from dusk til dawn, which happens to be at 9pm here. The rambunctious pace of the city is subdued by the calmness of Tibetan monks sharing the same unfinished lack of sidewalk.  The city combines three separate cultures of Han (Majority ethnicity of China), Hui (General term for Chinese Muslims) and Tibetan (religious and cultural minority in China).  As the English speaking Tibetan monk told me yesterday during our tour of the monastery – “we like to live in peace and for happiness, no point in fighting”.  This was of course a direct response to me sharing with him my country of origin. 

So I asked myself, what would make these people’s lives better, in the most inclusive yet general sense of a small town in western, rural china?  Is it access to electricity and clean running water, or is it a prosperous economy based on tourism?  Is it a lack of outside western imperialist intervention, or maybe our presence here was contributing to their well being?  Was it lack of tension, or was the tension itself the thriving engine of growth?  When asking these questions, to the students and my co-staff, I often encounter their desire to apologize for western imperialism.  Their lackluster attempt to be overly apologetic and genuine is often hidden under the guise of appreciation for the antiquity of the locals’ culture, for the traditionalism of their society and the continuity of their values.  Encouraged by privileged liberal values of acceptance and post-colonialism they tend to romanticize the rural culture without appreciating the locals desire to develop in the same industrial way that we did a century and a half ago.  We focus on agriculture and food, the epicenters of traditionalism, without stopping to recognize the mega complexes and shopping malls being built right next to the monastery.  Is that a western imposition or a Chinese version of modernism? Is that what people want, or is that the imposition of a reality in which more and more tourism comes this way?  Are the rules of supply and demand are more universal than the values we believe they so dearly cherish? And is that an imposition itself of western values or are they truly universal? Is there even such a thing?

My friend and co-instructor Shiqi told me that her grandparents are farmers.  Their only dream for their children and grandchildren is to never be a farmer.  It’s too hard they told her, and they want her to have a better life.  Several generations ago, before industrialism had come into play in the west, our great grandparents wanted the same for us.  But now that their lives have become a distant memory, we can look back and idealize their lives – close to the land, an organic pace of being and without the alienation of mega cities and post postisms.  But only because we are so removed from that generation can we be so romantic about these back to the land ideals.  Here in China, it seems to me at least, to be different.  The agricultural generation is still alive and kicking, 46 percent of the population is still agrarian hoping for greener grass for the ones to follow them.  In this observation truly lies the clash between us westerners wanting to value traditionalism, and the locals who want their lives to be better.  So what is better, and who’s imposing on who?

The truth lies somewhere in between; it’s fluid.  It doesn’t necessarily lie in one or the other, but rather in the joint fabric of a small town that may or may not represent something bigger. It lies in the same human fabric that holds power plays and ideals, that holds genuine desires and intents alongside tricksterisms and manipulations.  The idealist in me still seeks for a truth, but the realist in me accepts that there might not be one truth, but rather the genuine and manipulative desires merge in order to form a reality that is perceived so differently from each individual observer.

And the choices we make, and the perspective that we choose will form this truth.

Whether universal or not.

קצת על שפה וצניעות

עברתי שתי תקופות שונות בחיי בעבודתי החינוכית.  התקופה הראשונה, הארוכה והמשמעותית, היא כמובן חיי בתנועה.  חדור ברצון עמוק לשנות את החיים של האנשים סביבי, ניסיתי לעצב את האופק החינוכי עבור חניכיי הידיעה העמוקה של מה נכון בשביל אנשים אחרים.  התקופה השניה, הייתה בשהותי בארה"ב בעבודה בתחום של טיפול דרך שטח.  עם השינוי לשפה האנגלית ועם העזיבה המהותית יותר של דרך חיים ברורה ומעוצבת, ניצבתי בפני תהום שבה לא ידעתי להגיד לחניכים שלי מה נכון.  נדרשתי לעצב מחדש את התפיסה החינוכית שלי, ובמקום להגיד לחניכים שלי מה נכון ומה לא נכון, ניסיתי לעצב שדה חברתי ואישי שבו נוח להם לקבל החלטות על עצמם.

אני מחנך אחרת באנגלית ובעברית.  ועכשיו שאני נמצא בשדה זר לחלוטין שבו שתי הגישות הללו רלוונטיות, פחות, אני נדרש שוב להחליט איזה מן מחנך אני, ולמה אני מחנך.  הפער התפיסתי העמוק שבין חניך ל , student  שבין מדריך לinstructor משנה את מה שאני חווה ומה שאני מצפה מחניכים.  אני שואל את עצמי האם אני יכול  בסביבה  הזאת לדרוש מהחניכים לרצות לשנות את העולם, או שמא להסתפק בלרצות לשנות את עצמם? אני רוצה להיות מחנך ומדריך, אך המגבלות שלי בשפה האנגלית מאפשרות לי פחות.  לא בגלל שהאנגלית שלי לא מספיק טובה בשביל לתווך את הדרישות שלי מהחניכים, אלא פשוט כי אני מכיר את עצמי כל כך אחרת בשפות שונות.

אנחנו נמצאים עכשיו בכפר במחוז סיצ'און בשם לה מוסה.  זהו כפר קטן ונידח יחסית, עם נוף מדהים ביופיו סביבנו.  הכפר הוא ברובו עם אוכלוסיה טיבטית, על אף שאנחנו לא נמצאים בטיבט, אך כעם וכתרבות נוודית, הם יצאו לפני שנים רבות מהאיזור המתוחם הנקרא מחוז טיבט.  הכפר נמצא בתנופת בניה רצינית, חלק מהכבישים סלולים וחלק לא.  הזבל נמצא ברחובות, יחד עם ריחות האוכל רחוב, הכבשים והיאקים שורצים במרחב החברתי יחד עם האנשים והכלבים הסוררים.  צפוצי המכוניות הרועשים והמולת הרחוב הסואנת מלווה בתחושת רוגע השורה על הכפר מגגות המנזרים הטיבטים הפרוסים למרגלות ההרים הירוקים.  הנזירים מתהלכים ברחוב בהדרת קודש נונשלנטית, במאין קבלה ברורה של כל הסובבים שזוהי מציאות חייהם.

ובעודי בוהה במה שאני חווה כהתנגשות חזיתית בין מודרניזציה למסורת, בין קדמה לרגרסיה, אני תוהה מה אני חושב שנכון עבורם, ומה נכון לשאול את החניכים.  איפה עובר הגבול בין הרצון לשפר את חיי היומיום שלהם עם מכוניות, מים זורמים ואינטרנט לבין הרצון לשמר דרך חיים ששרדה אלפי שנים.  אני שואל את עצמי למה לחנך את החניכים שלי אל מול המציאות הזאת? האם זה בכלל קשור אליהם והאם צריך להיות להם איכפת?  מה אני מצפה שהם יעשו עם תחושות האי נוחות שאורח החיים שהם נתקלו בו וחוו מעורר בהם?  ואין לי תשובות טובות במיוחד.  אני רוצה לדרוש מהם לעצב דעה, לעצב מציאות, אך המילים הנפלטות מפי הם בסך הכל בליל פוסט מודרני של פרספקטיבות ונראטיבים.  בליל של ניסיונות לבלבל אותם ואולי תוך כדי למצוא בעצמי את התשובות.

ואין לי תשובות בינתיים.  אך יש לי יראת כבוד ותחושת צניעות אל מול החיים של האנשים האלו.

במהלך השוטטות שלנו בכפר, עלינו לנקודת שיא גובה.  ממזרח לנו התנשא לו מן צוק אדום אדום, המתפרס אל עבר האופק.  ממערב, הפסגות האפורות התפרסו אל מעבר לקו האופק והתמזגו עם העננים המעפילים לכדי יחידה אחת.  מצפון לנו הכפר, על גגותיו העשויים פח ועץ והמנזרים המנצנצים באופיים הטיבטי הייחודי.  ומדרום לנו נמצאה חווה חקלאית קטנה המגדלת מספר חיות מצומצם ושני חקלאים הפרוסים על הדשא ליד, מפטפטים וחולמים בהקיץ.  וכששוב מצאתי את עצמי מנסה לדמיין אם הם חולמים על מה נמצא מעבר להרים או על מה טומן לו המחר, החלטתי להניח לזה להיות, ולהנות מהעובדה שאני נמצא במקום שאולי אני לא אשנה אותו, אבל אני יכול לאפשר לו לשנות אותי.

נראה אם זה יצליח.

About being a foreigner

Yesterday I went on my first solo adventure.  Or at least solo adventure. You see, most of the time my goal is to empower the students to explore and learn to travel, that I don’t get much chance to do some explorations by myself.  But yesterday I went to buy bus tickets with Shiqi, my co-staff, and asked her to let me lead and find the way myself. It wasn’t easy to say the least, and required quite a deductive thought process.  We entered the subway, and my goal was to buy subway tickets to the bus station. I knew the name of the bus station, and found it in English. Then I copied the characters onto my notebook and went to the automatic vending machine.  I found the station in Chinese, and pushed a bunch of buttons until I finally had to put money in, and it worked.  It took a couple of times, and twice people stepped in front of me and I expected them to help me out, but to no avail, they bought their tickets and left me there.  I think this is was Americans feel like when they visit Israel. And I have to say that it’s not upsetting or anything, I just have to bring myself to realize that everything I do will take more time. 

A lot more time.

As a group we’re probably the only westerners in the area we are staying.  And just to give some proportions, Chengdu is a city of 7 million people, and seven million more on the outskirts.  It’s a big city, with plenty of hustle and bustle, things are constantly happening around us.  Consumerism plays a big role, and people are doing their thing.  Wherever we go, we seem to be an attraction, but when I walk alone every once in a while, I get a chance to see the glares and stares of the people at me.  I’m still not sure if it’s the hair, or just the fact that I’m white, but I definitely seem to be the focus. On the way to the bus station in the subway, while walking with Shiqi, a guy comes up to her and says something in Chinese, which I obviously don’t understand.  Shiqi starts laughing really loudly and I ask her what happened.  She explains to me that the guy told her that he was very shy, and doesn’t know any English, but asked her to tell me that I was very handsome, and that he wanted to be my friend.  We laughed a very long and awkward laugh, and continued with our day.  I could continue with more stories about being a foreigner that we experienced with our students, but their essence is clear.  It’s interesting to be on the other side of being the weird one out. 

But more tales will be told another day, now it’s time to go to sleep.

Google v. China

Four days into my Chinadventure, and I’m starting to pick up the pace.  It’s interesting to lead a trip to a place you’ve never been to before, because it requires a subtle balance between trying to explore for yourself and actually leading something.  I find myself mostly trying to pick up cues as quickly as possible in order to prep the students for something I don’t know much about myself.  Some things are pretty easy and universal, but as insular American kids they just don’t get. For example, watch the road when you cross the street here, because a green light doesn’t necessarily mean cross blindly.  For me, the second I stepped into the road I understood the lesson, for students, it takes a couple more times.  Other things are a little more complicated, like actually speaking Mandarin.  Most of my students speak significantly more than me which puts me at a complete disadvantage, and I’m trying to embrace it.  What I’ve learned quite quickly is that it’s not a matter of trying to communicate directly, but rather communicating your needs to another person, most of the times hand gestures and common grounds work wonders. 

For the past three days we were in at educational center in a village outside Chengdu.  We learned about development, and the tension between urban expansion and rural conservation.  Which was somewhat interesting, but to me the lessons of this place could have been learn in Mobile, Alabama just as much as they in Chengdu, China.  The times at which I wish I could communicate better with the people we were staying with was when we talked about what they wanted.  We were told that they wanted to keep their house, and continue their agricultural way of life, and not move to the city.  I kinda wanted to hear it from them, and ask some hard questions about modernization and how their desires are manifested, but alas, all I could say was “du zi bu shufu” (and in case your Chinese is weak, that means my stomach hurts). So instead I just ended up cooking with them. I can cook some awesome motherfuckin Chinese food! (with the right guidance of course).

Maybe the most interesting thing about this trip to me is the perceptions.  The trip was marketed as “China – off the beaten path”.  It attracts upper class kids, who want to learn how to travel and desire to be challenged.  To the instructors they perceive themselves as in a position to change their lives, to change their beaten path of becoming corporate lawyers or management majors and to project their lives into a different course that is more meaningful through this authentic experience.  But intentionally or not, the “unbeaten path” leads to an appreciation (and maybe even over appreciation) of a conservative lifestyle that cherishes the old and undervalues the new.  A lifestyle that is based on beliefs and notions of self that are becoming lost in today’s hyper-Urbanizing China.  Most of the instructors here come from American liberal perspective, and have a deep desire to expand their minds and see beyond their closed western perspective, but end up inadvertently propagating a conservative agenda, that if it was presented to them as “Southern Wisdom” in overalls, a pick up truck, a drawl and a sun burnt red neck, they would be revolted.  But presented in a monk suit and a triangular hat and a desire to “free Tibet” (please pardon the misplaced stereotypes) and everyone is moved by it as a genuine experience and the ancient wisdom.   That seems pretty western too, but what the fuck do I know, I’ve never even been to China before.

The food has been amazing.  My mouth has been on fire for the past three days, and both the people in the village and in the city have exceeded my expectations for spice. 
Besides that, tomorrow is a new day. Or as I’ve been saying to most people here, most of the time:

Woda changuan bu hao. (look it up)

Oh, How The Trustafarian Gods Have Blessed Me

About a year ago I realized that I regretted having titled my blog – modern nomad in the USA.  I expected to be travelling across the US for some time, trying to figure out the vast wastelands of the inner US.  But I got stuck in this place called Fuckville, North Carolina, primarily for a piece of paper that apparently takes three years or so to get.  My nomadic days ended abruptly, but my desire to travel never dissipated. I couldn’t afford to go travel, and my damn conscious prevented me from enjoying the glorious life of a Trustafarian.  So I waited for the opportunity to manifest itself.  I guess this summer my patience was rewarded by the Trustafarian Gods, and I found a way to free ride all the way to China.

The truth is that I’ve never been to Asia before, but somehow I ended up leading a four week trip to China with 10 young men and women. For the first time in my life tomorrow I will cross the Pacific and go explore not only a new country or continent, but also a new culture, and most interestingly, a new perspective. 

For so many years I’ve seen my friends and my brothers’ return from Asia (although it was mostly India and Southeast Asia) with a sense of awe.  I’ve always explained that as “you find what you’re looking for”, and it made so much sense to me.  But now as I stand on the doorstep of my own experience into the unknown, I find myself preparing for this trip not by trying to understand what I will experience, but rather by asking what I will be looking for. And the truth is that where I am in my own life right now is a place I’ve never been in before.  I feel so comfortable alone, so secure in my own answers to other people that it’s become hard to ask what I’m looking for.  I’ve gotten used to being the one who gives answers, but now the time has come to ask, and seek.  I don’t know what the questions are, but they are there. 

I’m glad my first time going to such a foreign environment is going to be with students, because as they experience something so new and raw, their questions will become my own.  I’m trying to embrace the humility in me, and learn from the people around me, but I’ve become so arrogant that embracing this humility has become so hard.  I’m glad my first time going to travel, to really travel will require me to navigate and give answers, but to go through this journey with other people too, will allow me to ask my own questions too.

When I write, I sound like such a cliché.

So maybe it’s time to backtrack and explain the past two weeks.  For some odd reason, the company I’m working for this summer decided that I should lead a trip to china.  This company prides itself in authentic travel, teaching global citizenship and global awareness and takes super rich kids to go see what real poverty looks like.  Most of the students are highly driven, ambitious young men and women who also want to change the world, or at least build up their resume.  And I look at these goals and it seems like such bullshit.  How the fuck can a group experience “authentic travel”? How can such cushioned teenagers with so much money  even experience anything real?  I came to the two week orientation as a cynic, as you might tell.  I was going to piggyback on some else paying me to travel with kids for a couple of weeks, so that I could go travel by myself after.

The orientation began with hugs and flowers the moment we got off the bus in the Sierras, to which I responded poorly and tried to shy away from strangers attempting to engross me with their pathetic false love.  That night it delved into a ceremony in which one hundred people “intimately” shared their inner most thoughts about why they do this work, as they symbolically threw a stick into the fire.  I wanted to yell “because it’s a free ride to china”, or at least “because of the money”, but I held back and practiced humility.  These people surrounding me weren’t jaded yet by the presumptuousness of trying to change the world one student at a time.  But as the ceremony continued, what I realized is that it wasn’t that they weren’t jaded yet, it was that they made a conscious decision to believe.  Up until two years ago I was a believer too, I was one of them, but standing around that circle reminded me of whom I once was, and I had to make a choice.  I grasped my stick tightly in my right hand, struggling to let go and find the words that would suit the occasion.  In a moment of clarity I finally spoke up and said “I do this work because it reminds me to believe, and sometimes that’s really hard for me.” I did it, I let go of my sarcasm, and allowed passion to penetrate the cold air of the Sierras, to let it flow through my skin and finally reach my core. I didn’t expect it, and immediately returned to analyze the power of ceremony.  But for one moment I was able to articulate what I was looking forward to – to believe.

As the orientation continued, I realized how similar to the Kurs Madazim (the Israeli teenage instructor course), this whole experience was to me.  I was able to reinvent myself, and decide who I wanted to be, but I also wasn’t sixteen anymore.  My ability to let go of my image of self that I have created over the years has diminished significantly, and I can no longer just be whoever the fuck I want.  In the 13 years that have passed since then, I’ve built a repertoire of behavior that suits me, and I was more reluctant to let go.  I decided early on that I would not hesitate to be my direct self, even though everyone around me was talking about respecting other cultures.  I wanted to understand, but I also wasn’t willing to let go of my abrasive side that tells people what I think. It’s effective, and it gets shit done. But I also felt secluded, and that I could learn from the people around me. The constant tension never disappeared, but I thrived on it, joked through it so people get to see that even though I am sometimes an asshole, that it could be playful and most of all, just fun.

The two weeks lasted an eternity, but looking back on them now, they flew by.  The people became gradually more interesting, and my desire for humility began to manifest.  My three years of training in an overwhelmingly formal American society have at least taught me how to play along.  At least that. I know my value and I know in what areas I can shine.  I didn’t hide behind a shadow of myself, but I also learned to accept.

I’m still not sure what the four weeks of travelling with students will entail.  I’m still not sure what parts of myself will manifest in this trip.  But more than anything else, I’ve willing to play along.  At least it’s a start.

Upon reflecting about what I wrote for a moment, I was reminded of what a good friend once told me about my blog.  That even though I sometimes feel that way, the world doesn’t revolve around me, and that’s it’s nice that I can share so intimately about my experiences, but I also have to remember to share what exactly is going on.  Albeit at the end of this post, maybe I should share some more about what exactly I’ve been doing.  Two weeks ago I left Israel and landed in Los Angeles.  After spending a day with my cousin, which was great, I got picked up and was driven six hours north-west to the Sierras, which are the California Mountains.  We camped for two weeks of orientation and had multiple workshops about education, risk management and inter-cultural communication.  The assumption is that most people on these trips have been to the countries they’re going to, and that they know a lot about these places, so we spent very little time talking about China. The main focus of these courses is the cultural experiences, so we won’t be speaking much about politics or economics.  They shy away from the macro, because they want to intentionally focus on the micro and what people are experiencing.  Although I find it frustrating, I’m willing to play along.

Tomorrow the students arrive and I leave for China. 

I’m still not sure what to expect, but I know it’s gonna be good.  Next post will be from Chengdu, which is in the Sichuan province.  Yeah, that’s where Sichuan beef comes from.

 

So at least the food is gonna be good.