Mid Autumn Festival and More

This past week, the lovely country of China celebrated Mid Autumn Festival, which means the whole city was abuzz with Moon Cakes and fun all around. It was an especially exciting time for me because a dear friend Meghan, from my Cambodian adventures happened to be spending some time here in China and thought she’d make a side trip to see me!

We spend the holiday with my Chinese family making more dumplings and chatting. We had a great time being girls and gossiping for three days before she departed. Thanks for you visit Meghan!! You are welcome back at any time!! Also in celebration of the festival, we had a cake-making day at my school!  It was basically a sugar buffet, including frosting in various colors, dried fruit, marsh mellows, candy, pretzels, cookies, and everything else sweet you can imagine for the kids to decorate their individual slices of cake. It was really a hoot!!!! Of course by the end of the afternoon everyone and everything (including Teacher Madi) was sticky and covered in frosting.

Also on the exciting news front….I was in a movie!!! Haha it sounds more impressive than it actually was but was still my first (and probably last) professional acting gig! They paid me and everything! J I stumbled upon the part because a friend of a friend of a friend was working on the set and heard they needed a foreigner for a small part, so they put the word out.  Low and behold, I am indeed a foreigner. My role in the movie was the girlfriend of a Chinese boy who breaks up with me! I even had one line…I’m so proud.  It was quite a bit of waiting around to get the scene right, and made for a 14-hour workday but I met some incredible people and made some new friends.  The movie will air in CCTV-6 (I think that is like the Chinese version of HBO) sometime at the end of October, so we will see if the camera really does add 10lbs….I hope not! Thank you Shu Ke and Leslie for taking such wonderful pictures and bringing me cookies when my tummy rumbled on set!! 

Also just on the random, this is my coworker Kelly with a cricket she found outside. She brought it to work to have as a pet and accidently pulled its leg off….poor thing! Also this is a snail I found in my lettuce when making a salad…you know your veggies are fresh when someone is still making their home there.  Sadly I am a terrible person and I didn’t know what to do with him so I threw him down the garbage shoot with the rest of my trash….31 floors…ooops!!

            Side Note: Is it strange that I identify myself more as an American outside of American than I do at home? At home I am an Idahoan, and more than that, I am a country bumpkin, a daughter, a sister, a sportsmen, a craftsmen, a bad driver, a good cook, a woman of many hobbies, and a zillion other things that I use to label myself to help identify with different groups. Here in China I am simply an American.  I constantly use my nationality to introduce myself and it is always the first inquiry, “Where are you from?” “I’m American.” That simple. I am American; as if those three words can sum it all up, and for many people they do.  No need to say more. People here have seen the movies, watched the music videos, heard the news; America? Oh yeah I know that place. That’s where P-Diddy Paris Hilton are from right? America? I think my favorite chocolate bar comes from there. America? Yeah, yeah, that place that Obama runs.

It makes an individual like me seem so simple, so neat and contained and on most days I find myself abiding by these rules. I look American. I act American. My accent is American. I have even been told that I smell American (however that smells, good I hope…). Back home I identify less as an American because it is already understood. It’s a given and nobody needs any clarification on the subject which allows me the time and energy to be all the things I mentioned at the beginning of this thought train.  The plain truth is, some days I want to be more than just American. Sometimes I want to be from a more specific place than a country of countless acres and 311 million people, somewhere personal. I want to identify with a more specific group of people, to take part in more specific activities. I want to actually do, do more that just be American.  And so I am searching. I am looking for my place here in this new home of mine and when I find it, you will be the first to know. J