I Need a Hug

March is a month of holidays, anniversaries, and milestones. So far in holidays, we’ve had Learn from Lei Feng Day (March 5), International Women’s Day (March 8), Chinese Arbor Day (March 12), and Pi Day (3.14 – Happy Pi Day!). As for anniversaries and milestones, we’ve had the 242^nd anniversary of the Boston Massacre (March 5) and the 100^th birthday of the Girl Scouts of the USA (March 2012), the beginning of Daylight Saving Time (March 11), the 3^rd anniversary of the beginning of this blog, and the 2/3 mark of my year in Guangzhou (4 months to go). Still to come, we have the Ides of March (March 15), Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17), my birthday (March 20), the Spring Equinox (March 20), and Earth Hour (March 31). There’s probably several more, but consulting Wikipedia would be cheating.

All other events aside, March is my eighth month in Guangzhou. Some days it feels like I’ve been here forever, and other days it feels like I just arrived. Some days it feels like I’ll be home in no time at all, and some days it feels like I still have an eternity to go.

I already have a mental list of things I know I will miss about China when I do go home. At lot of it comes from things I know I missed after my time in Beijing. First on this list is the food. I do love my morning baozi and scallion pancakes. Honestly, though, I can recreate most of it at home. All I lose is the convenience and cheapness I have now. But, that is true about most of the American food I miss. It’s not that I can’t find the ingredients or equipment here; rather, it’s that I have to make a serious effort. My local grocery store doesn’t sell flour, and only occasionally has cereal (and then my choices are Corn Flakes or Frosted Flakes). I have to go to the international groceries for things like baking powder, cocoa powder, spaghetti sauce, or cheese. It’s a heck of a mental shift to think of spaghetti as an exotic food.

I will miss the convenience of public transportation. I love taking buses. It makes me feel cool. There is absolutely no reason for this. On the other hand, I sort of miss driving. Or maybe I just miss my driving music, which is great for cruising down long empty stretches of  I-95 and not really suitable to walking down Shuiyin Lu.

I will miss looking at my bank account on payday and feeling like Mitt Romney. Take a moment and convert your currency into Chinese yuan for a moment (Americans, multiply by 6.5). It makes you look rich, right? Sure, most things you buy are also more numerically expensive, but I’m definitely on the well-paid side of life here. Given the continued poor state of the American economy, I’ll be happy for a job when I get back. Good pay is a dream.

I will miss the opportunity to speak Chinese (as surprisingly rare as it is) and to interact daily with people who have grown up and spent their entire lives in a culture that is not my own. I’m not actually sure I can articulate what it is like to live as the “other.” When we encounter foreigners at home, we have the home field advantage, and the foreigners are in the position of constantly adapting their own perspective to ours. While we are able to share that experience, and find meaningful exchange in that experience, it is entirely different to be the fish out of water.

But, there is one thing I won’t miss at all, and it is this. I haven’t had a hug in 8 months. I’m from New England, where we measure personal space in feet, so riding the subway is all about having people in my personal space, but I haven’t had any intentional physical contact more personal than a handshake since I said goodbye to my parents at the Portland bus station on July 9^th. So I’m a little touch-starved. This isn’t a huge problem. Last year, living alone and in a new place, I also didn’t have a lot of affectionate contact in my daily life. But I got to visit some member of my family or circle of close friends once a month or so. I miss leaning against my Dad on the couch, or playing the guess-what-I’m-drawing game with my tentmate when camping, and trading foot rubs with my sisters. I really miss cuddling my cat (although she probably doesn’t miss the clingy manhandling). The thing about touch is that you don’t really notice how important it is until you don’t have it.

I’m not nearly as homesick as I expected to be. I have quite the history of homesickness. My first time at sleep away camp, I was actually there with my sister, but she was older, cooler, and in a different cabin. Mostly, she was completely ignoring me. On Wednesday morning, I locked myself in my cabin’s bathroom, crying, and refused to come out until someone went and got my sister. When I went away to a four-week summer program a few years later, I called home every day. When I went to boarding school at 15, I kept down-to-the-hour countdowns for each extended weekend home. When I was in Beijing, I could not wait to be home again, it was a physical ache. My year here in Guangzhou is the longest time I’ve ever spent away from my family. I honestly expected to be privately inconsolable by now. But I’m not. I can do this. I just don’t like it. I want to be with my family, because family is important to me. I love China, I love the experience, and I love the self-validation of being able to live on my own. I don’t love being so far from the people I love. Four more months, family. Then it’s free hugs all around.