People, People Everywhere

I was recently comparing two pictures that I have taken in the last few months. One of the shots is in my neighbour back home in Canada. It is a picture of me walking down the street in front of my house. As you gaze down the expanse of street behind me, you will notice that there is no one else in the picture. I am the lone person on a long and quiet street. I recall going for many afternoon walks at home and not really coming across anyone, other than the rare person making the hasty dash from their house to the car or vis versa. Communities are quiet and people tend to keep to their own homes and spaces.

In contrast, a friend captured an image of me coming down the stairs toward her apartment complex the other day. In the background there are some people walking by, while others sit out in the sun playing cards and enjoying each others company. It is a picture filled with life. Infact it is hard to take a picture anywhere out here with out the background filled with the commotion of others. Neighbours still know each other by name and life and activities are fussed into every street corner.

My Friend's Blog

I was reading one of my local friends blogs the other day, and I wanted to copy what he wrote so you could all read it. This guy is part of one of the other ethnic minorities that live in our city. A few of my friends and I took him Uyghur dancing for the first time in his life. Here is what he had to say about the experience:

tonight ,i and Jeff met Jen ,Ruby,Karen.they want to go to uygar restaurant for dinner and watch uygar party,so we had dinner in uygar restaurant ,but when we finished,seems no body
want to dance,so Karen--she can speak uygar call waitress and want them play music then we can dance with other uygar customers.
Music started and Jeff and Jen,Ruby,Karen going to dance and calling me go together,actually i nvever dance before ,because when i was young ,my mom told me "dance club is bad place ,you should never go there,"so i never think about go to dance in club and learn some dance.so when they called me i was afraid that,because i could not dancing,then maybe they think i am getting shy and they did not want give me pressure ,they three went to dancing,Jen leaves to took care bags
Restaurant played uygar style music ,Jeff and girls try to dance like other uygar ,then second song started,they invited me to dance,actually i prepared to dance but i was still afaid ,because i am worst for dancing ,i was prepare to dance because when i watched them dancing,i got a special ideal,i think they are enjoy the life ,they enjoy the friendship and time .
Jen cames back to took care bags and hope i can dance with them ,it is hard to me,but i am save my face in my pocket ,i was tanding and go to stage dancing with my friend and other customs,music is beautiful and i am very happy ,i thought that because i did my first dancing and i was dance with my friend ,we were enjoying our time ,enjoying our first time dancing together!

Should I Stay or Should I Go???

This semester I have been spending most all of my time with older ladies on campus. This is a big change from college students all the time, but wonderful in so many ways. These ladies have time all day to sit and talk; we are not constrained by their class schedule, or needing to finish homework, or meeting their boyfriends. The only block is my language skills (since none of them have ever even thought of studying English).



But even though they have all day, I never know how long they really want me to stay, or what is the normal length to visit. Should I leave after an hour, 2 hours… 4 hours? And the Uyhgur culture doesn’t help me out at all. After I have sat visiting for a long time I notice that they are starting to look tired, or I start feeling bad because they have gone to so much trouble to prepare food for me. I then start to suggest that I should take off, or move to leave, the lady pats my arm and gently pushes me to sit back down all the while saying “sit down longer, stay, stay”.

In Uyghur culture you can never even hint that a guest should get going. You will always be told to sit longer. The other day when I was told to stay, I sat back down and kept visiting. After about half an hour she got a phone call, and I could tell from listening to her end of the conversation that someone was waiting for her. When I asked her about the call she admitted that her nephew was getting married today and that the family was at the restaurant. I quickly gathered my stuff and started heading to the door. All the while apologising for troubling her (this is also a very cultural thing to do). She also started getting her coat, but even while we were at the door she said again “oh please sit down stay a little longer, stay, stay”. I never know if I should stay or go, when do they mean it and when are they only saying it because the culture demands hospitality?

Finally

I arrived back in country over a month ago. One of the first places I went was to the foreign affairs department of my school to start working on my visa. Thirty six days, over ten hours of just sitting and waiting, three trips to the foreign affairs office, and five trips to the police station later I am the proud owner of a Visa/Residence permit, valid through March 1, 2008.

American’s Don’t have Problems

This past week I have started using my crutches again. Don’t worry my knee is not locked or anything like that…. It is more of a preventative measure. I found that with all the walking and stairs the pain was getting worse, and I wasn't sleeping. When I use my crutches, I don’t put as much weight on my legs and can make it further around town and still sleep at night.

Over the years I have always been stared at for one reason or another. When I was in high school it was because of my wheelchair. People might not have even realized they were doing it, but everyone in the mall or on the streets would lean back to try to get a better look to see if they could determine what was wrong with me. Since moving here everyone stares at the foreigner to see what I am wearing and how I will act in certain situations. Humanity has a fascination with what is different. I guess I have gotten use to the looks and stares over the years. I hardly think anything of it any more, unless of course the person staring walks into a pole, falls off the curb, or gets into a car accident because they are looking at me (all of which have really happened in the last three years since living here).

However since I have started to use my crutches out here the looks have increased both in number and intensity. People first notice the crutches, and then they look down at my feet to see what is wrong… on my feet they notice very western foreign shoes (I still can’t wear Uyghur lady shoes that all have these crazy high heels and very pointed toes). Since my feet look foreign they next have to look at my face. When they notice I look like an American they have to start the staring all over again, crutches, feet, face, crutches, feet, face. They have such a idealist view of the west that they can’t believe any American would have health problems like this. The land of opportunity and advancement must have a medical solution for someone on crutches.

Good things that have come of this are: I now always get a seat on the bus, even if they are jam packed someone will offer me theirs. Drivers give me time to cross the street instead of trying to run me down. The taxi drivers will walk around and open the door for me. It’s great.

Starting Class

We learned this weekend that class was due to start on Monday, the only problem was we didn’t have our class schedule yet. I figured that if I headed to the department heads office first thing in the morning he would be able to tell me when my classes were. But apparently I wasn’t the only one with that idea. Packed into this one tiny office were more than 100 irritated foreign students. Most of them are from Russia or other Central Asian countries. They come here to learn the language so that they can be involved in the export industry, or atleast that is why they say they come. They are all eighteen and this is the first time they are away from home, and they want to party. The office was already hazy from their cigarette smoke when I arrived.

It took me awhile to push my way to the front of the loitering group and pick up my schedule. I waited until I had successfully squeezed out of the office and back into the fresh air of the hallway, before looking at the paper. After just one quick glace I called my classmate to tell her something had to be done about this. We had six hours of introduction to Uyghur, even though this was suppose to be the third year class, we had four teachers, all teaching different things using different books. It was a mess. Not to mention that we had the teacher that was known for only speaking the native language in class, and never using Uyhgur to teach Uyghur, she is also known for being a racist against Koreans ( which both of my classmates are). We also had the male teacher that has a reputation for hitting on his American female students and trying to play footsies with them under the table.

I headed to meet my classmate, but one the road was stopped by one of the schools best teachers. She was headed to the same office. It is the first morning of class, and even the teachers don’t know who they are teaching yet. She asked to see my schedule, and I was pleased to tell her we had her for four hours a week, but would have loved more.

She called twenty minutes later while my classmate and I were still mourning our disastrous schedule. She wanted to meet us in front of our dorm, because she had a plan.

Right after lunch my classmate and I headed back to the office, where the chaos had passed and the air had cleared. We gave the headmaster “beautiful words” as they say in Uyghur. We were sweet and kind, but informed him that in our third year we didn’t need to take an introduction class. We asked instead if we could have more hours we the good teacher. We thanked him for giving her to us last semester as a teacher, and said we had really gotten use to her teaching style. After 30 minutes in his office, listening to him yell at us, and our teachers on the phone ( which he had to do since he had messed up our schedule, but couldn't just change it without losing face) we left the office with a perfect looking semester.

There are only three of us in our class, and we have who I would consider the schools two best Uyghur teachers. We had to forfeit two hours of class a week, but that is a small price to pay to not have your teacher trying to touch your ‘blue eyes or yellow hair’.

After all that craziness, we finally started class Tuesday morning. So I am officially a student once again. No need for withdrawal pains, I am hitting the books with a vengeance.

I like Flowery Happy English All the Time

There are so many people in town who are trying to learn english that more and more products are starting to bear english text. Students find them fun to own, even if they can't understand them. I find them fun, becuase even though I am a native english speaker, sometimes I can't understand them either. I recently started to buy poor english products just for the fun of it.

First, it was a small writing tablet. I wasn't looking for anything special, but sifted through the different options anyway. Most of them looked about the same, depicting cute drawings that might appeal to children. The notepad I wound up buying was typical of the selection, with the words Fresh Fruits above a picture of an apple and inchworm. It was the caption below that made my decision: In moonlitht I remember your laghter and your droll behavior...

Next came a tube of toothpaste. I needed a new toothbrush as well, so was already attracted to the inexpensive brand which bundled both together. I can't say for sure if it was the flavor (orange), the free toothbrush, the cheap price (2 yuan, about CAD $0.25), or the text which finally motivated me to buy it: Firm Tooth Smell Well

A couple nights ago I wandered into one of the small shops off-campus to buy a bottle of water. I happened upon a clone of Oreo cookies. I've seen imitations of Western products around, but this one was skillfully done. The packaging used an identical shade of blue, similar typeface, even the red triangle where Nabisco's logo should have been. The name of the knock-off is Olino, above which this mysterious description appears: Pandemic Cookie

On the top of on of my blue storage bins is a sticker which depics a blobby creature. The left side shows him flexing his muscles while looking skyward. The middle shows him with eyes shut, blissfully contemplating the cheeseburger in front of him, a small red heart emanating from his body. The text states: Diversified blue genius offers you boundless dreams and wishes. B L U E Genius

As I was walking across campus the other day I crossed paths with a student wearing a T-shirt bearing huge English text. This one was a perfect example of how irrelevant the meaning was. What was cool was the English text emblazoned across the chest, not whatever the message might say. Her shirt merely said, Design T-Shirts Store Graphic.

It is fun to stop and try to read and understand my own language. Fancy phrases and misued words is part of what makes life fun here. So as my local freinds would say at englsih corner "my home town is very lovely, Welcome you come greatly"

All the Stores look the same

When I was home last month I was amazed at all the building going on. It seemed like every city I visited was having one or two of these big box stores built. You know the ones with the oversized book store, shoe store, clothing stores, and restaurants. Add those to all the existing malls, and I was wondering where they would find people to shop at all these places. I guess the nice thing is that every community now has one of every shop close by.

That is not the case here. I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for my friends yesterday and noticed that all the shops I was facing sold the same thing. They were all paper stores, if one didn’t have the colour of paper you needed, or the type of pen you were looking for all you need to do is head to the next store, just a few feet away. The more I got thinking about it the more I realized that is how all stores are out here. There are all the baking supply stores down one street, the toilet seats sold on another street, shoe alley, the used cell phone corner, the computer market, the sporting good stories, the DVD market, and carpet shops, even all the shoe shining guys seem to sit side by side in the same place. The convenience of having one of everything is gone. If you want to buy something you have of think where in town are the shops that sell that stuff. Talk about competitive sales… if the guy in one store doesn’t agree to your bargaining price you can just walk next store and see if they will give you a better price there.

Soldiers Everywhere

Three years ago when I started class out here I was more than a little frightened to see so many soldiers wandering around my campus wearing their army fatigues. There were more than a thousand of them, and every morning, noon, and night, you would find them out in the court yard or on the sports field practicing drill. When I would see them walking around the campus I would check my purse to make sure I had my passport and all my papers. I wanted to be prepared in case one of these soldiers asked to see my paper work. Every year the last week of August or the first week of September, the flock of soliders return to campus, and all over the basketball court there are groups of soldiers.

I learned pretty quickly that these soldiers were not worth being afraid of, in fact they are part of a country wide initiation to college. All freshmen start school a week early for military training. In a lot of ways it is more about teaching them discipline and group co-operation than any real military manoeuvres. I can hear them singing and chatting outside my window, almost as often as I hear their drill leaders yelling “right, left, right, march”. It is funny to watch the sophomores loiter close by, trying to look cool since they are now upper class men and are too old to be in camouflage marching for hours each day.

No Cockroaches

I went to one of my old favourite restaurants the other day. I didn’t recognise it right away since they have renovated the place. The outside really isn’t that much nicer, but inside it is clean. During our whole meal I didn’t see a single cockroach on the floor, wall, or table. How exciting is that!

The students at school have a saying about the cafeteria: “You know you are in first year when you get a cockroach on your plate and refuse to eat your dinner. You know you are in second year when you use paper to pick it off your plate and drop it on the floor. You know you are in third year when you use your chopsticks to shove it to the side of your plate. And you know you are in forth year when you are excited about the extra meat.

Even though I am in my third year of language studies, I am still like a freshman in so many ways.

Asian Gifts from North America

I went to the dollar store a few weeks ago in preparation for my return. I mainly picked up stuff from their Canada collection. It is always fun to give someone a key chain or a pencil that is symbolic of where I live. The one thing I have to watch for though, are the items that come marked “made in Taiwan” “made in China” “made in Indonesia”. Almost everything you buy in the dollar store is made in one Asian country or another. I try to buy the ones that have it written on a removable sticker so my friends here won’t know. The irony is not lost on me, that these cheap little gifts are made in the east, shipped to the west and then hand carried back here to the east.


It wasn’t as funny yesterday when I gave one of these key chains to this lady who has become my friend. She held the key chain in her hand, rocking back and forth, muttering “oh my, oh dear”. When I asked what was wrong she started to cry and said “such a great gift. I have never owned something for a foreign country before. Oh, thank you, thank you.” She then took the key chain and touched it to her forehead, which is a way the Uyghur people honour a gift and the person who gave it. She seemed so impressed with the small token of my homeland that there is no way I could have told her it was really an Asian gift, which had been just temporarily for sale in the North America.

The Gift of Re-gifting

I have learned a lot over the past three years about getting and giving gifts when visiting a home. I have bought bags and bags of fruit and nuts to give to different hosts. I have bought material for dresses and suits. I have bought bread. Likewise I have also got a number of different things. I have been given four liters of milk, candy, and once I was even given nylons.

Since coming back from being home, I have spent a lot of my time with some of the retired teachers on my campus. They all treat me like their daughter and invite me into their home for tea or lunch. The first few times anyone visits a home it is expected that they will bring a gift. Yesterday I started at the fruit lady’s stand and after visiting for 20 minutes or so I bought some bananas and headed off to visit others. I gave the bananas to the lady at the first home that I went to. Before I left, that lady made sure I had some grapes to take home with me. I went right to visit my next friend, and I presented her with the grapes as my guest gift. Before I headed out the door she handed me some cake she had just made that morning. When I arrived at the next house I handed off the cake. After several rounds of gifting and re-gifting my gifts I headed home with bread in hand. The whole concept of re-gifting really saved me a lot of money and time (instead of always running back to the fruit stand) it’s like a gift in itself.

Hot Pot makes it official

I have been back a whole week, but now I know I am officially here. I went with some of my friends to have the best meal that this part of the world has to offer, Hot Pot. If you are at all the germaphobic this entry might be a little much for you to handle, but trust me the taste is out of this world.

You sit at a table with a hole in the centre, each table has its own gas burner. They then place a big pot on top filled with spices and add water. As it starts to boil you can select what types of meat and veggies (all raw) you want to put in your soup. They all come on individual sticks so you can decide how much or how little of each food you want. Once you have made your decision you stick them in the water and watch them cook. Don’t worry about picking up raw meat with your chopsticks, if you leave them daggling in the water for an extra minute the germs will get boiled away. When things look ready everyone goes fishing in the soup with their chopsticks to pick out their favourites.

The longer you sit there the hotter you get. I have to wear light layers when I go just to survive the heat. In fact the restaurant is so hot inside that the windows (and your glasses) are constantly fogged up. The smell of soup is so strong in the air that you have to wash your clothes after a visit… but it is all worth it for the taste. After having hot pot I know I am home.


The soup (it comes in both spicy and mild)


The sticks of veggies and meat


The enjoyment ( yes this is a file photo from when Mel came to visit in fall '05)

Silence in the Noise

I was out for a walk today and couldn’t get over how quiet it was. Mind you as I walked by sellers were still calling out prices loudly from their booths, the breaks on the buses were still screeching and grinding as they came to a halt, cars were honking at each other, the children were still running, laughing and playing, the old women still gossiped and greeted each other on the street, and music still flowed from the restaurants enticing people to come in, and the general bustle of big city life buzzed around me. Yet despite it all, I was amazed with how quiet it was, and how much I was alone with my personal thoughts.

I remember thinking the opposite back in March right after I went home. I was at a conference eating dinner and could barely focus on the person next to me from all the noise and distraction around. It may have only been the sound of forks scraping the last morsel of food from the plate, and the sound of people talking amongst themselves, but it seemed overwhelming. It was the talking I couldn’t tune out. Everyone was speaking English, and without even intentionally doing so, I found my self eavesdropping on everyone's conversations. I could have told you what the lady at the table behind us made for dinner the night before, or what was wrong with the guys car across from me. I knew how much the teenage girls paid for their new purses, and I knew the score of the hockey game. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of information that was coming at me.

I hear just as many people talking here, but my brain can not compute foreign languages at the same speed it can English. I still have to work to understand what the person I am talking to is saying, much less understand the guy across the street. In some ways it makes for a much quieter walk, to be able to enjoy the silence and self reflection. But it other ways it saddens me. Before I left I felt like I was making head way in the language, being able to carry on a conversation, but the silence in the midst of noise reminds me how far I have to go.

I’m Back

After 30 hours on the go I have arrived safely with all my bags here and intact, which is quite amazing considering how tight of a connection I had in Vancouver. In local time I got into my dorm room at 10:30 p.m. I amazingly still had energy (I think I had hit a fourth or fifth wind), and I started to clean my apartment. It was all still packed up with boxes everywhere, since I had thought I was going to move. By 1 a.m. I had found the bed and a clear path to the washroom and decided to get some sleep. I had visions of sleeping in as long as it took me to get over the jet lag. But the construction workers in my building had other plans. By 6 a.m. the crashing, banging, and sawing had begun. No matter how many pillows I put over my head, the sound would not be dimmed.

This was the look of my hallway when I returned. It took a little work to carry all my suitcases over the rubble.

We Have a WINNER

In the latest KSA Querterly I said . I will still give a prize to the first kid that learns to say my name. But it seems that no matter how long they sit on my lap and I whisper “Karen, Karen” all that comes out is “mama”. Yesterday I got a phone call from my old college roommate. I answered the phone and she said. "we won. Listen to this. David, David come here.... who is this in the picture?" A small voice responded "Aun' Karen" Way to Go David you did. Check your mail for a free small french fry coupon at McDonalds.


Here is Our WINNER David Baptist

Some of the runners up (and equally loved kids I have meet this summer)

An Intellectual Challenge

For the last five weeks I have been on the road. I have visited Brantford, Ottawa, St Tomas, Cambridge, London, and Toronto. On of the highlight of my trip was getting to attend class. I have been called a professional student, others have suggested that studying might be an addiction in my life that has a stronger hold than coffee. But the truth is this past semester (January- May 2007) was my first semester since 1984 that I have not been a student. I have been suffering withdraw pains, but thankfully for me this year September came early. To help celebrate my back to school endeavours my old college bought me a bright neon flower power binder (very seminaryish).

For the past three years in Central Asia I have been a language student. It was a very humbling experience to go from Graduate studies where every day I was thinking, critiquing, and incorporating information, to language school where I learn how hard it is to count to 10 and say hello. I audited both of my classes which means I listen to the professors, participate in group discussion, and not have to do any of the assigned homework. The nice things about my classes this past month is that not only where they intellectual challenges, they challenged my heart and how I was going to use and apply the information.

Earth’s Loss is Heaven’s Gain

On Saturday, April 28th my grandfather Lionel Arthur (Art) joined the praising crowd around the throne of God. At the age of 85 he had lived a long and full life that was an example to all of us who loved and admired him.

While he may be gone, the lessons that he taught us about life and faith will carry as a legacy for generations to come. I feel fortunate to have been raised in the shadow of such a great cloud of witnesses. I hope that I will be able throw off everything that hinders because by faith Art lived his life as an example for his family.

Mexrep in Canada

This past week I travelled out to Vancouver for a conference and got to hang out with one of my friends. I also meet some of the Uyghur community that have immigrated to that part of Canada. They were having a large party, often called a Mexrep, which just means there was a lot of good food and dancing.

When I first arrived I had was shy and decide to not mention to much that I had lived in Central Asia, or spoke the language. So I was just asking people questions about the food, the culture, and there clothing. When I got to the end of the serving table I heard a person yell “Mehrigul” (my Uyghur name). The girl severing drinks also formerly lived in my dorm building at the university. Next thing you know she was speaking Uyghur to me a mile a minute, and everyone looked shocked. Before the end of the night this girl had me up front singing a traditional Uyghur folk song ( and if you know me at all you know I should not be up in front of anyone, singing any song in any language).




Dinner at My Uyghur frinds house

It turned out to be a great trip. My friend gave me the grand tour of Vancouver. Neither my home in Central Asia or here in Canada are surrounded by such beautiful mountains and rivers.






I can't belive that I actually crossed that bridge.

And This Little Piggy Ran WeeWeeWee all the Way Home

Yes that's right I am home; back in Canada. Some of you might still be asking “what happened?” A few weeks ago I mentioned I wasn’t sure where I would be spending this next semester. I had applied for a job in a small town twelve hours from where I have been living. We waited for several weeks and in the end were informed the school was not able to obtain the proper work visa’s for us. By the time they told us, however, the school semester had already started and I was to late to apply to study for another semester. So I decide to head home for a little while. It has been 2 ½ years since I was last here.

One of the bonuses of being home is my freedom to once again eat pork. The Uyghur people are Muslims. Most of them may never have read the Koran, nor do they always pray five times a day, but every Uyghur knows that eating pork is wrong. So wrong they will not even say the word, they call it ‘the big meat’. So for the sake of my friendships I have chosen to give up any pig product while I am in Central Asia. Whenever one of my Uyghur friends asks if I have ever eaten or tried it I answer “yes. in my culture we eat it quite often. We believe that it is not what you put into the body that makes a person clean but what comes out of it.”. I do tell them that all of the dishes in my house are ‘clean’, never having touched pork, nor do I ever go into restaurants that serve it. I promise them I will not eat it while living among them because I value their friendship and respect the culture

But that doesn’t stop me from partaking all I want when I am home. Since returning a week ago I have had bacon, pork chops and Ham. This little piggy really has come home.

This picture was sent to me by one of my classmates over a year ago. He had left Central Asia and stoped in to visit my parents. My mom made a great home cooked dinner with lots of ham, and my classmate took this picture to to rub it in.