C’est la vie.

“Paris is… the best city to wander around alone because it’s so beautiful you feel like it’s hugging you.”   —Lessons in French, by Hillary Reyl

This is just a quick update to say that the blog’s been ho-hum as of late because we’re in Paris on a fifth year anniversary/conference/stuff your face food tour, and while we’ve been seeing lots of lovely things like cathedrals and art and cobbled streets, the photos are firmly in the digital camera (and subject to my husband’s critical editing eye) until we return, and I’ve been doing that thing lately where you soak it all in before you muse onto the page.

Still, just a few updates: we’re spending the full two weeks in Paris, because Evan caught a nasty cold on the plane, so we’ll save the trip to Burgundy, the Loire, and Normandy for another time!  That means we’ve been scrambling to book hotels last minute, but that we’ve also experienced the personalities of several different arrondissements intimately.  And I finally get the flaneur thing: it is so wildly freeing and delicious to just stroll about leisurely in this beautiful city, though it has also been predictably disorienting not to be able to speak the language, my heart still leaps a bit every time I hear Chinese, and Paris feels so decisively more foreign to me than Asia!

Fuzzy photo (courtesy of a friend’s iphone) of some strolling down those magical streets.

I’m convinced that I’m not sophisticated enough for all this, and yet I’ll–we’ll–continue to fake it, muddling through in our best attempts at French and French accents, which has gotten us some memorable and satisfying coffee, food, and views.  And faking it isn’t so bad really– I’ll take satisfaction over sophistication pretty much any day.

In praise of the weekend

It was an invigorating, pedal-to-the-metal kind of a week, full of early mornings, course planning, expectations, connections, and preparations.  

The weather finally turned cold over here in NJ: I took a run in the freezing temperatures on Friday morning feeling quite at home, and yet I’ve also relished the opportunity to rest inside while the wind swirls outside this weekend.

This weather calls for stew, about which my husband, thankfully, knows plenty!

What have you been up to?

I’ve been contemplating these words about doing less, these from the always wise and timely Anne Lamott, and wondering how I can make a visit to this amazing sounding coffee shop sometime in my future?

On Saturday morning I grabbed coffee with a seminary alumnus friend for some good, hearty conversation about academia, life, and faith.  Yesterday afternoon I combed the UPenn Anthropology museum with some friends and then went to a lovely cocktail party to celebrate another friend’s birthday down in Philly.

Finally, this morning, Evan and I attended church and got to listen to reflections on faith and history.  The pastor read from Dr. King’s “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech which he gave the day before he died.  You can listen to it here.  His words are on my heart and my mind as we honor his memory and his dreams tomorrow.

I’ve been praying for wisdom as I begin to teach, for China, and for grace.  I keep hearing from other wise voices and God’s that I need to continue to let go and live into the harmony of the present, embracing and remaining open to what can and will be.

I’ve been missing walks in the village, the families I grew close to, even the misty sweltering Southwest China weather as of late!  But I am comforted when I see God’s hand in leading me back to this concept of harmony, so woven throughout the fabric of Chinese life and morality.

Guangxi foster family friends.

Could it be that God weaves a harmony in our lives that we are created to crave but in our sinfulness also so easily dismiss?  And could it be that fulfillment and life-giving transformation often involve minute acts of yielding to God’s harmonic rhythm rather than moving boulders, mountains, or dreams with our own two hands?

I hope your Sabbath has been restful…may you yield to God’s perfect harmony this week and give God praise for mountaintops, dreams, and the present. 

Comfort foods

Well, I’ve been stricken with the sniffles here in NJ.

I’m pretty certain it’s just allergies, but those of you who have allergies know that there’s no such thing as just allergies.  I keep wondering where this special kind of torture came from (ragweed? pollen?) and thinking rather indignantly, China never did this to me!

The special kind of gorgeous on the D&R Canal, Princeton, NJ that may just be responsible for these allergies. Photo by Evan Schneider.

Of course, it’s funny the ways in which China has rubbed off on me.  For instance, I’m fairly convinced these sniffles are caused by the weather, and a dramatic change in pressure, and I stood around for at least a half an hour last night in order to avoid going out in the rain, in which I was convinced I’d catch a cold!

Yes, China has either made me into your grandmother, your mother, or…Chinese!

But as I dragged by tired self home last night (in a cab with a new Chinese friend I’d met on the side of the road, no less!), and I thought of what to cook up that would make right these snuffles and sniffles, I realized that my comfort foods are still decidedly American.

Last night I sauteed up some onions, garlic, spinach, mushrooms, and zucchini with olive oil and soy sauce, which I added to a steaming bowl of chicken ramen soup.  I also like the accoutrement with a bowl of rice, but last night I needed the chicken soup!

Vegetables and rice.

And if you read this blog with any regularity, you won’t be surprised that I made peanut butter and banana oatmeal for breakfast this morning.  We’ve been trying almond milk in our coffee, so I boiled the oatmeal with the almond milk this time and it worked nicely.

My love affair with peanut butter and banana oatmeal that began in China…

That’s something China doesn’t have–almond milk…or allergies.

What are your favorite comfort foods?

Cooking cultures

Many anthropologists are writing about the culture of feeding, defining kin and households based on who eats where and who feeds whom, and arguing that sitting down at table is a sacred practice that connotes far more than just physiological processes (see Janet Carsten and Mary Weismantel).

A meal in the mountains of Yunnan province. Photo by Evan Schneider.

My husband, hard at work, in the kitchen.

And last night as my husband whipped up some tomato sauce from a bushel of farm fresh tomatoes down the road, we began talking with a friend of ours about what we ate growing up and noting that it mostly came from cans, freezers, and boxes.  It was not only a function of the type of leisurely evenings and worryfree youth that we (in many thanks to our parents) were enjoying that our parents lacked, but also a culture of poverty, I surmised, that struck America among our depression-era grandparents and extended into the cooking habits of their baby boomer grandchildren.

“What a fascinating generational study,” I mused, perking up, ever the anthropologist, and my mind racing about the lively interviews to be conducted among grandparents, parents, and children in kitchens all over America.  I began to expound that my friends who have definitive cooking backgrounds mostly took these from their immigrant grandparents, while often their baby boomer parents were too worried these ethnic roots would hold them back and didn’t pass on language, culinary expertise, or other cultural artifacts to their children.

The rolling hills of Yunnan province and mostly subsistence farms. Photo by Evan Schneider.

Traditional Chinese stoves in the countryside.

Another look inside a Chinese kitchen.

These are sweeping generalizations, of course, but immigrants cook less out of boxes and are often much closer to where their food comes from: I remember the Hmong families my mother tutored in inner city Milwaukee that kept pigs and chickens (and likely butchered them in the backyard), and fresh off the plane from China, my husband recently lamented where he might be able to buy pig fat nearby to render his own lard for making tortillas.

A mound of bok choy, our favorite Chinese vegetable.

My husband and a foreign friend haggling over a piece of pork along the road just outside of Beijing.

I’m not arguing for a hierarchy here when it comes to health, knowledge, or even taste (God knows lard, while it tastes great has expanded many an American waistline), nor am I wanting romanticize poverty.  Rather I’m going for something like substance, connection, depth.

As I thought more about these cultures of feeding or lack thereof (and enter here the catalyst for the slow food movement), I began to acknowledge the reason my heart leapt yesterday morning when my professor suggested my husband cook some Chinese food for us this evening, or why my husband and I felt oddly satisfied by the Chinese meal we had in Oklahoma in ways we didn’t by American cuisine.

It’s not just my body, but my heart that craves these foods lately, the feeling of being satisfied part and parcel of a struggle to adopt and adapt a whole nother world.  And that is often now followed by a profound emptiness, or hunger, that creeps up from the depths, hardly recognizable until it finds what it craves.  My heart, my mind, my soul found themselves profoundly satisfied by China’s odd cuisine, and I’m left wondering how long it will be before America can do the same.

**On a related note, I just stumbled upon this TIME photo essay on how families around the world eat.  Fascinating!**

Two years in China

Nanning at twilight!

Another image of city life in China.

It’s been two years of life for my husband and I here in China.  We’ve traveled to the mountains of Yunnan to visit minority churches, explored the ultra modern city of Hong Kong, explored, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Egypt, and the UAE and hosted our families and friends. He’s completed two years of teaching college-level English and I’ve finished two years of fieldwork with foster families.

On Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam.

In Tahrir Square, Cairo, on the one-year anniversary of their revolution with our friends Ben and Emily.

With a foster baby in Guangxi. Photos by Evan Schneider.

More than anything, as I look back through the past years, I’m astounded not only by the breadth of these experiences that I will carry with me, but also God’s provision and faithfulness.  

If you have time I invite you to check out the following posts which weave their way, highlighting some snapshots of our two years here, describing some of the highs and lows of research, faith, cross-cultural immersion, and our life.

From 2010

August 2010: Abide in me…  {thoughts on silent prayer in a city of 7 million, spiritual growth, and freeing oneself from distractions}

September 2010: Journeywoman  {on security, brokenness, and culture}

December 2010: Equipped by the Spirit (Yunnan Reflection #2)  {reflections on my first trip to Yunnan, and the tension between the need for theological training and the equipping work of the Holy Spirit in the Yunnan countryside}

From 2011

May 2011: Hunan Headlines: A Mix of Sorrow and Hope  {personal and professional reflections on the baby-selling scandal in a county in Hunan, which made international news}

July 2011: Church Renewal from Below  {thoughts on Richard Rohr, cross-cultural exchange, and Chinese solutions to Chinese problems}

August 2011: A Taste of Vietnam {evangelizing for one of my favorites, Vietnamese coffee!}

October 2011: Come on ride the train {snippets from a typical road trip to Guilin}

November 2011: Like a child  {reflections on fieldwork with children, disability, and faith}

December 2011: The Best Things about Winter in China {bundled up babies, chestnuts roasting, and hot pot, of course!}

From 2012

January 2012: Cairo notes: from the rooftops {a reflection on our first few days in another land}

February 2012: Thanking God for the woes  {on the beattitudes, justice, and God’s call}

March 2012: 72 Hours in Hong Kong {highlights from a weekend trip}

April 2012: Some Easter Thoughts from China {on Christianity, tomb sweeping, and culture}

May 2012: Consider the ravens, consider the blessings {on understanding, cross-cultural relationships, worries, and of course, blessings}

July 2012: Pinching myself {reflections on leaving China and savoring the little things}

 

 

 

 

 

Guilin fare: camellia oil tea and potato noodles

A view from Diecai peak in Guangxi, Guilin. Photo by Evan Schneider.

After long days making foster visits this past week, and tramping all over the city of Guilin, I sat down with my Chinese friends to drink Guilin’s famous camellia oil tea and munch on potato noodles.

Guilin oil camellia tea to the left complete with rice puffs and peanuts, and piping hot plates of potato noodles to the right and the top of the frame.

Funny how I had been to Guilin I think five times over my past two years in China, but I’d never sat down for a bowl of the traditional green and ginger tea, with its crunchy rice puff and peanut accouterment, nor had I sampled the hearty, plump potato noodles.  We mingled with the locals after dark in the roadside stands, stooped on little stools at short tables- Chinese style.

But we made careful not to imbibe too much of the bitter brew…apparently the caffeine can easily keep one up all night!

Chinese ladies perform tai chi by the Li River in Guilin. Photo by Evan Schneider.

Well, that’s a double whammy for the China bucket list (see items 8 and 10).  And an overall 5/10, not too shabby, with a mere week left here in China– I’ll take it.

America the beautiful

I’m realizing that this whole ambivalence that comes with leaving another country that’s been your home for the past two years isn’t necessarily the best fodder for the blogosphere (sorry).

I figured I could take advantage, however, of the mixed feelings, by listening to the leaps my little heart does when I think about some of the more frivolous (and not so) aspects of calling the U.S. of A. home.

So, with no further ado, here are some of the little things I miss and am looking forward to in our reunion with America in just a month:

Idyllic, isn’t it?

• Grass, and walking in said grass, getting it between my toes and feeling the earth under my feet (cheesy, I know).
• Pastries: scones, muffins, you name it, and the opportunity for some real baking in a real oven (which I hardly did before we left the country, but now it sounds great!).

How’s that for a chocolate cake?

• Being in the same time zone as friends and family, i.e. being able to pick up the phone in mid-afternoon and give one of them a call!
• Libraries full of books and movies in my native language.
• And along those lines, quiet, solitude, and the great outdoors.

• Worshiping at a Presbyterian Church.
• Good draught beer, burgers, sandwiches, grilling out, and other all-American fare.
• Going to the gym (and knowing it will have air-conditioning and be relatively BO-free!).
• Gorgeous bathrooms and bathtubs where one can just linger…
• Good coffee and wine!

What did I miss??

Happy Weekending.

The weekend is here, the adventures are over (photos from our family trip to Guilin and  the rice terraces in Longsheng to come!), and we’re down for the count over here: runny noses, sore throats, and coughs for the husband and I.

Of course, the next adventure– packing up and moving from China– is just around the corner.

But I’m not ready to think about that just yet.  

My latest obsession: yogurt, walnuts, bananas, a drizzle of honey, and a dollup of peanut butter in a bowl.  A dollup of peanut butter just makes everything better, doesn’t it?  

Walnuts suggested, cashews pictured, substitute your nut of choice!

This morning I read these two intense and sobering articles: one about the prevailing problem of migrant deaths in our deserts, and the other about women’s work-life (or lack thereof) balance.  Still reeling from both of those.

But I’m also looking for some light, fun reading, after being disappointed by The Girls from Ames and Confessions of a Counterfeit Farmgirl, and Leaving Church.  I like spiritual, international, and memoir, not necessarily in that order…any summer reading suggestions??

The hubby and I have been blowing through the complete series of Modern Family…gosh, I love that show!

Can’t imagine it will be the most exciting weekend over here being under the weather and all, but I’ll leave you with an image below of the Dragon Boat Festival here in China, and click here for a really neat shot of the Great Wall.

May your weekend be a happy and healthy one!

Psalm 139

It is hardly an exaggeration to say I never expected to end up in China.

In fact, up until four years ago the thought had never even crossed my mind.

Fall photo shoot at Lion Hill Park, Nanning, China.

But I’ve mentioned countless times on this blog God’s overwhelming faithfulness in leading both my husband and I to China, in accompanying us every step along the way, and in making God’s presence known and palpable, often through new friends and relationships, during difficult times.

This morning I took some time out on my perch here on our veranda in the cool morning breeze, the faint sounds of the city of 6.7 million in which we live filtering up from below.

A view of the city of Nanning, nestled against the Yong River.  

I took some time to hear God.

And the knowledge that God knew our path to China before we knew it (Psalm 139:3-4), that even as we settled at the farthest limits of the sea, God is there (9)–well, that knowledge truly is too wonderful for me, so high that I cannot attain it (16)!

To me the words of this psalm are overwhelmingly meaningful because this is not the first time God has gone with me, nor will it be the last.  From the dusty border towns of Mexico, to the urban slums of Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, to the rolling countrysides of China and their meager way of life, or the bustling metropolises, God is there.

The border in Agua Prieta, Mexico, where I spent a summer working with Presbyterian Border Ministries.

Leading kids in an afterschool program in song in Anacostia, Washington, DC.

Children in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Young girls at a Bible Training School in the countryside of Yunnan, China.

The city of Guilin, China, fusing ancient and modern landscapes.

While perhaps I only momentarily pause to consider God’s words, the revelation that I am fearfully and wonderfully made (14), the fact that my mere life has ever been on the heart and the mind of that of God far before I came into being is truly beyond my comprehension (15-16):  How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them! (17)

God may any anger in me be righteous, directed toward the roots of evil in this world, manmade systems of injustice, poverty, suffering, and inequality.  May that angst lead me to be a servant of yours who humbly recognizes my own wickedness, my own limitations, and deficiencies (21-24).

Hot peppers as seen in Guilin, China.

The smells of roasting garlic, hot peppers, and soy sauce are beginning to waft over to my nose, evidence that day is breaking here in China.  A friend who visited us recently asked me as we stood on this very balcony, do you not just pinch yourself sometimes, and say, I’m in China?  How did all this happen?

And I do.  Today I stand in awe of you, Lord, how perfect are your plans, how wise, how true.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.  See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  (Psalm 139:23-24)

Amen.

*All photos are by Evan Schneider.

**This post was inspired by Liza De Younge at Enjoy Elle Jay‘s Psalm 139 Bible Study.  Thanks, Liza, for your great study!

Hanoi Highlights

It’s been about a year since our first trip to Hanoi, the bustling Northern Vietnamese city that both assaults and enchants with its peddlers, propaganda posters, and world-famous pho.

And it was in a familiar sleepy stupor that we first wandered the streets after disembarking the overnight train from Nanning at the ungodly hour of 5:30 China time/4:30 am in Hanoi.

Good morning, Vietnam.

We stopped into a nearby noodle shop to stomach some pho and a coffee shop to grab a stiff early-morning brew, and then it was off to St. Joseph’s cathedral, the statuesque steepled church in the middle of the city.  While mass was just letting out as we arrived at seven am, in the early afternoon locals gather nearby to drink fabulous lime tea under the awnings, and it’s a more festive atmosphere.

We also made our way to the iconic red bridge on Hoan Kiem Lake and enjoyed watching the locals practice their tai chi. We grabbed a couple pan chocolate (God bless Vietnam’s French heritage!) and savored them as we continued meandering our way through the colorful streets.

When we came back on Saturday from our tour on Halong Bay, we had just a few short hours in Hanoi, so we made a beeline for Cong Caphe, where we downed some fabulous little cups of coffee and stocked up on supplies for the train home to China.

We ended the evening in Hanoi by dining on a set menu at the popular (and pricey) Wild Lotus.  The atmosphere was relaxing, the food pretty good, and the company excellent, of course.  While our time in Hanoi was short, it did not disappoint.

More on Halong Bay and the rest of our trip to come…