This post is brought to you by the anxiety ridden water type Pokémon who I cannot seem to escape. The first time I saw a massive blow-up Psyduck was outside a mall where I had bought new glasses (see below.) There were several influencers camped outside the mall, tripods set up, where I heard them say Psyduck between Chinese words I could not understand. Later in the day, when I was back at my hostel for the night, I looked down from my bed only to see a paper bag with a Psyduck staring at me from my bed. My third encounter was a claw machine, in a mall I did not plan to go to, where there were several. I don’t know what is going on, but I find it to be a very silly sign. When I was in college I taught a class to first year students where one of my students posed the question “If you were a cartoon character which would you be,” to which I responded a mix between a Psyduck and the sadness character from the movie “Inside Out.” Also weird, maybe too coincidental timing, that Inside 2 has recently come out. What does it mean! Who’s to say.
The city that never sleeps: Changsha
Made it to the first stop in my birth province tour, and first city in China on a drizzly Wednesday afternoon. Well maybe Putian is to be considered my first Chinese city, but Changsha definitely feels more like a C I T Y to me, if ya know what I mean. Being in a city, from the moment I got off the train, felt like a totally new chapter of my trip. Being in the countryside for so long, I hadn’t seen a familiar store name in so long and for some reason seeing things like UNIQLO and Watsons, corporations I don’t particularly identify with or “like” felt comforting. I was also shocked to realize that being in a city meant seeing people around my age. When I first arrived at my hostel, I think it was the first time I saw someone around my age in literal weeks. It felt very comforting and exciting, especially to see how younger Chinese people express themselves and what they are interested in and their perspectives. Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed the older folks who I have met and spent time with. Leaning into intergenerational relationships outside of family is not something I have really done too much before traveling, but I have really enjoyed it. It is definitely a different kind of relationship and ability to relate to one another though.
Everywhere I go in China I am amazed by how beautiful it is. Besides the occasional camping trips I have taken, I think it's been a while since I went somewhere and was just in awe of how beautiful it is and maybe even longer since I said that about a city. Since being here though I have decided that I’d like to plan a once a year trip until my visa expires (still confused about the details of my visa LOL, so we’ll see if it's possible) to be able to go to places that I won’t be able to this time around.
I was in Changsha for 2 weeks and a day, which confused many of the people I met who think the city is quite boring, despite it being known as “the city that never sleeps.” I honestly could've stayed longer because I liked it so much. Perhaps maybe just because everything feels so new to me, and also comforting in the way that cities often do. I have enjoyed just being able to live, staying in a place for longer than a couple days, and not feeling like I’m rushed to see all the sights. Some of my happenings have been:
-Eating so much spicy food, FINALLY!!!! Hunanese food is known to be spicy, something I have missed so much, and many I have met here who are transplants to Changsha have said is “in my DNA.” Stinky tofu, cold noodles, BBQ skewers, sizzling pots with garlicky peppered meats. Basically just lots of meat, it's actually so hard to find a vegetable here, and even when I do most are cooked with pork. They also cook with a lot of cumin here which I LOVE. If there is anything to get across how amazing the food is here, it is probably this: the Pizza Hut serves beef wellington. Clearly the standards are different LOL.
-Eating lots of cake! Matcha cakes, mixed berry cake, rose and lychee cake. Sometimes if I go a day without cake, I start obsessively thinking about it.
-Finally getting all the apps to work, Alipay, Wechat, Meituan, something happened to make them all work for me, lol. Thank god, because I was STRUGGLING. Someone I befriended at my hostel showed me how to use coupons on Meituan 1 week into my stay and it has completely changed my life. One night we did a little “food tour” with all the coupons she had bought, visiting 3 different restaurants, all for $12 each TOTAL. It was so fun to connect with someone from a similar background to me because her family immigrated to the UK when she was younger, and she also loves food/eating. I forgot how much I missed the experience of sharing food with others.
-Walking everywhere, almost passing out one time, but it ended up being OK. I took a very nice hike up Yuelu mountain which is very popular in Changsha, and even though I was so sweaty, my cheap necklaces started turning my whole neck green, staining a shirt I had bought, it was very worth it!
-Drinking tea for several hours and eating the most intricately designed bean cakes. The bean cakes looked like literal pieces of art, one of the ones I had was shaped like a building, and you could see the details of the fencing and pagoda roofing.
-Lots of shopping; boutiques, vintage stores, jewelry stores. Everything here is so cute, and so affordable, and good quality. This is very dangerous for me.
-Got a new tattoo(s)! I woke up one morning with the very urgent need to get matching tattoos on my shins. So I did! I am newly decorated with matching little vase dudes that reminded me of the ceramics I saw while visiting the Hunan Museum. And met a really cool tattoo artist in the process. Shout out to those who helped me decide on color.
-Being constantly reminded how much I love women. Several days I have come back to my hostel after a day out and thought to myself “Wow, I love women!” I walk around and they all look so beautiful and so cool. They are always so kind and uplifting to me and just the briefest of conversations feels like deep bonding to me. I cannot say the same about men LOL. There are many reasons that could be unpacked for why I feel so closely bonded to women, even ones I don’t know or may never see again. But to feel that kind of kinship, even if only captured in a temporal moment, brings so much joy to my life.
-Making friends! I found myself a very cozy cafe/bar to hang out at where I’ve kind of become friends with the owners, and also been able to chat/socialize with other customers. One night when I went to the cafe/bar I walked in to the movie I had seen in Hong Kong playing on the projector. From the words of someone I shared this with, it felt very serendipitous and perhaps a sign I was exactly where I should be! The few women I befriended here, all 6-12ish years older than me, have made me so excited to grow older and more in my power. I think I maybe don’t even have the words to describe how in awe I was of them and hearing stories about their lives and their perspectives. The way they live their lives and the vision they have for their lives very much aligned with the visions I have for mine. Again, because I am mostly surrounded by people my age +/- a couple years, sometimes I am maybe too present, and getting older feels wildly unknown and sometimes a little grim, just because there are many things about the way I want to live my life that I know could be considered “unconventional” and different than from the current examples I have of what growing older looks like. All the women I met are confidently doing things their own way, despite various pressures, such a beautiful thing to see!
-Learning so much history just by interacting with people, and feeling like so much of what they share can only be learned via oral history telling, which I'm so grateful for and feel so enriched by!
-Being in China, I find myself seeing how important family is culturally. While I was in Wuyishan, my host mentioned how it's very normal for families in China to live together for several generations. This is obviously very different from American culture and I’ve heard about this before. Seeing how family culture here plays out in real life has made me understand the potential pain, or how difficult of a decision it must be to send a child to an orphanage to be adopted, as many have had to do. Obviously just the weight of the circumstances makes it easy to know it can’t be an easy decision for all, but I think I have felt it differently than in the past. I try not to speculate on the circumstances of my specific abandonment/adoption because there is no way to really know, at least with my current circumstances. So not to necessarily apply this thought to me specifically, but I think as a person trying to always be connected to empathy and as someone who just naturally thinks about adoptions and its implications, it is a lot to feel LOL.
-On a different but related note, I have loved to see so many children accompanying their parents at work. It reminds me a lot of my childhood, which I remember, but don’t often feel the nostalgia of those moments because there were not many “reminders” in a place like NYC compared to here. I think it also just feels really human to me on a level that I feel like sometimes employers don’t allow their employees to be, if that makes sense.
-Changsha is known as a city where there are not usually many foreigners. Because of this, and because I’m Chinese in China, but from a different context obviously, I’ve been trying to put words to the shock of experiencing my racial and ethnic identity differently than before. Like my “very Chinese face” as locals often tell me, is actually soooooooo uneventful and insignificant here. Makes sense lol. I shared these developing thoughts/observations with a friend of mine who went on a big trip to Japan, her country of origin, and she helped me find the right words to describe the feelings I was explaining. I’ve been comparing and contrasting what makes Asian people feel Asian or feel their specific ethnicity and how different that is for those who grow up in the context of their country of origin vs those who’s conceptions are vastly impacted by migration and how environment shifts what parts of our identity and personhood feel more relevant than others, and what that means.
Delicious rose lychee cake made by someone I befriended
An impressively intricate bean cake
I think the U.S. is holding back my hotness: a very long story about buying new glasses
Since being in China, I am really feeling how much of a hater the U.S. is!! I know I mentioned before how much of luxury it feels to be in a place like Asia, where many things are simply designed for someone like me. But I really felt this after I had bought new glasses, from the kindest lady at the mall. Buying glasses was something I knew I wanted to do while I was in either China, Korea, or Japan because it is much more affordable than a place like the U.S. where I have to pay separate fees for my lenses, frames, and exam, AND sometimes have to pay extra because I have a high prescription or don’t want lenses that are as thick as a YA novel. While I was trying to find a mall for a very much needed AC break, I came across this glasses store and was like “Welllllll I might as well just take a look.”
In China when you shop, oftentimes someone will assist you for the duration you are in the store, so the lady there immediately started pulling frames for me to try before I could even decide which ones I wanted to try on. At first, I looked at the frames she pulled and thought they looked a little more boring than what I had imagined for myself, and they weren't really what I would’ve chosen for myself. But when I tried them on, I really liked all of them. It was actually really crazy she could just see my face and know what would look good. Many a time glasses shopping in the U.S the workers always choose frames they think look good on my face only for me to HATE them, or they choose ones that look like the ones I wore in elementary school because they know my prescription is high. TBH we know why this Chinese lady was able to pull frames that were cute and looked good on me….. but at the same time it was so refreshing and it felt shockingly unfamiliar to experience. On top of this, usually the only frames that will even stay on my face are wired frames with wire/adjustable nose pieces due to my very Asian nose/low nose bridge. I’ve always wanted plastic frames but they will literally slide right down my face because the nose piece is designed for people with bigger??? or higher??? nose bridges (not sure the correct terminology on this.) Since I’m not new to this, having had to have glasses/contacts since kindergarten, I have since found wire frames I like and that look good on me, so I kind of gave up the plastic frame dream. But I do remember always wishing I could get them when I was younger. This is such a collective “issue” because I even know of an asam woman owned business that started selling glasses for those with low nose bridges to address what Asians living in a white man's world experience in this regard! And I know some bigger glasses stores are getting better at catering to lower nose bridges. I will stay, I have tried them on at particular bigger glasses stores before, only for them to still slide off my face. And also, like good for them, but we’ve been existing for a long time, barely able to see, so what took so long? Something needs to be unpacked there………
Flash forward to me being at this Chinese glasses store, all the glasses the lady chose were plastic frames and sat perfectly on my face. This is when I realized a desire I had when I was younger, and honestly kind of forgot about and moved on from wanting, was going to come true. Inner child is healing??????? Needless to say, I bought some very cute new glasses, and made a tik tok with the worker who was so kind and gave me so much energy! Also, not relevant to what I’m trying to get at, but IYKYK, the lenses on these glasses do not stick out of the frame at all!!!!! When I finally was leaving the store sporting my new glasses, I felt oddly emotional, like I wanted to cry. And I wasn’t really sure why this experience felt so emotional to me. I think maybe in this moment, I felt the endless possibility of being in a place where your existence is not only recognized as something to be catered to for lack of a better term, but also where the ability to choose between options is not restricted by things that just are and are often because of race and/or ethnicity, such as my facial features. Like something I always had wanted for myself but couldn't find, wasn’t a matter of “it doesn’t exist,” but rather something else. In the case of what I experienced growing up in the U.S. everything is catered to white people, skinny people, etc.,etc., which definitely impacted the things I felt like looked good on me or the choices I had, and ways I had to adapt in this regard.
There is natural diversity in features that humans have, as a result of many factors. Obviously I am able to have this experience because the majority population here, like me, is Chinese. But I think generally this just makes me think about how global capitalism and white supremacy culture really don’t allow, or make it incredibly difficult for all the different ways humans look and are, to flourish wherever one may be physically located. From something as simple as the clothes and accessories we choose to wear to even bigger issues, everything micro and macro always feels so connected. Perhaps something very basic to say, but I’m still trying to put words to why this experience was so emotional, maybe even cathartic(?) for me.
I am the type of person to pack my “cute clothes” to go on a camping trip, think about what outfit I want to wear to go grocery shopping, and wear my 3 necklaces, 2 sets of earrings, and 10+ rings anytime I leave the house. I attach a lot of my self-expression to my appearance because that has always felt like a facet of my life where I could show my personality and manifest the person I wanted to be, even sometimes without fully being that person yet. This experience unlocked a new level of possibility or choice in this form of expression I already hold dear and take sometimes too seriously (Aka internal tantrums I throw when my outfit doesn’t express my feeling or spirit that day.) All this to say, I have unlocked a new level of hotness, watch out world.
Smilin' in my new glasses
In conclusion
This was originally going to be part of a longer post including all my thoughts and happenings from July, but once I finished my “Changsha'' section, I realized it will be so long by the end of July if I wait. So here I am a bit early!
Changsha at night, the lights fade into different colors. Chinese people are so extra for this lmaooooo. Truly ENCHANTING!
ALWAYS!!!!
