Cabin Fever

(1/25/07)

But while I’m plagued by a tinge of homesickness, my sickness is of another kind all together: cabin fever. I’ve already touched on this sentiment a few times already – my academic weariness, the small social scene in an already alien setting, and most of all, the endless hours spent in the classroom and on campus. I would venture the assumption I’m not alone in this opinion.

But it’s the reminders that make this experience so bitter – reminders of the world outside that we came here to see. Every time I walk up to the fourth floor of the building in which we have class – a journey I’m required to make three or four times a day – I pass a fragment of a Confucian saying (that I myself studied last semester) displayed on the wall on the second floor. 学而不厌, its meaning something like ‘to study and not grow sick of it’ – an irony that fails to stir my amusement.

In the west, the image of China is a mostly homogenous picture: 1.3 billion people eating the food we know so well from our boxed take-out. Studying China and Chinese had expanded my perception of ‘China,’ but since being here it has become so apparent just how much diversity there actually exists. I can say that almost every restaurant I’ve eaten at has its own unique cuisine, some varying wildly: pineapple rice and fried bananas at a Dai minority restaurant or the spicy tofu and beans from Sichuan.

I spend my free time now reading the Lonely Planet guidebook my program sends us as a gift. People are planning what they’re doing during the break we have for Spring Festival (aka Chinese New Year). One classmate is heading west to Yunnan, a province where over 50% of China’s minority cultures live. It is said the province has every terrain but arctic, and it is known for its beauty and diversity. Another classmate is heading south with her Chinese roommate to Hunan, home of Mao. Another is going to Xi’an in the heart of China – ancient capital and the home of Qin the First Emperor’s tomb, guarded by the terracotta army.

Our classrooms have maps of China, and as I stare at them, the number of places I wish to see and go grows: Yunnan, Xi’an, Sichuan, Huangshan, maybe Xinjiang, and perhaps the most intangible: Tibet. These places call out to me, luring my mind and dreams out of this city, through the veins of rails and unknown roads. I simply long for the ‘fresh’ air and movement.

Last weekend we had a group excursion to see the Great Wall at Mutianyu, on which friends and I spent hours simply walking its length and taking every ‘I can’t help but take it’-photograph. As cliché as it was, the experience was just what I needed after the first and very disappointing week of Beijing j-term. Unfortunately, it was something like taking off a tight shoe for a breather – you find it’s not so easy to put back on.