Trapped

Before I came to China, my greatest fear was that once I got here I would feel trapped. It wasn't a very practical fear - China is a very large country, not a little box- but it was a realistic one, and it has proved somewhat accurate. I didn't realize, though, the extent to which I would be trapped in my own mind - the effect of day after day unable to express myself out loud. Today I learned the word for "arm" - I will no longer have to refer to my arm as "this thing." I've been studying Chinese since I was 16! Not knowing the word for arm! Yesterday the woman who hands me my towel at the gym spent a good two minutes trying to get me to pronounce my own name correctly! Four years! I CANNOT SAY MY NAME! I'm not sure you can imagine how frustrating this is. Plus I frequently don't have internet in my room (I'm in a stupid internet bar at the moment, where apparently playing music without headphones is de rigeur and no matter how much I speak Chinese to the staff, they insist on responding in English), which makes me feel even more trapped and isolated.

In addition, I am trapped in my schedule - this whole Chinese all day every day thing is really taking its toll, especially since I am still unsure why I'm doing it in the first place. Yes, so I learned the word for "arm" today, that will be handy ... until I return to America. I feel like a hamster in a hamster wheel - studying Chinese just for the sake of studying more Chinese. And it does get easier in a way, but it doesn't get a whole lot more meaningful.

My father sent me an email yesterday asking about the food - he said he'd heard the poor-quality food here was really good and "he knows I'm really enjoying the food." It made me want to cry. Lunch today was a heavy, greasy bread made with flour, water, and egg. I want a plate of spaghetti and tomato sauce (not now, because the stupid bread is still in my stomach and I feel bogged down and ill, but, you know, someday). I want a sandwich. I want a fajita. Chinese food is all Chinese - how do they stand it? I've been to almost every restaurant in the vicinity. I've eaten every tofu dish they have. I'm so sick of bok choy with mushrooms and sauteed eggplant I could weep.

I know I'm learning as much from the bad times as the good, and the good times are still pretty thick on the ground. On the whole, I think I'm happier here than I have been in years, and the problems I have here are just slightly different versions of the problems I have in the States- there's nothing new, really. Five months from today I'm going home. Five months is not a long time.