Kaleidoscope

When my grandfather died, I was 5,000 miles away. Literally on the other side of the world. In China. My heart fragments. Some pieces remain where I stand in China, others long to cross the ocean to be where my grandfather has been --- America.

What happens to identity when someone belongs in two places? Does it divide or multiply? Or do I simply cease to be from somewhere. Am I from nowhere? As I wonder I feel that all too familiar feeling, the feeling that has tugged my heart to breaking point, “I don’t belong where I should belong and I want to belong where I don’t belong.”

* * *

As far as the eye can see are little black heads moving up and down, side to side, like a collection of bobble-heads. Hanging from the trees are lanterns and brightly colored fans. I push and shove as politely as I can but with enough force that I don’t simply get swept along with the crowd. Everywhere is red. Red firecrackers, red good luck charms, red cord knots, red paper cuts, red banners, red cheeks and lips. It’s Chinese New Year - the Chinese equivalent of Christmas - and I can feel the excitement crackling on my skin like static electricity. New Year’s Temple Fairs are part of a fourteen year tradition in my family and one of the highlights of the holiday. Never do I feel more like an integral part of China and its culture than I do when I am being crushed by the flood of people all seeking for good fortune and health in the coming year. It’s a feeling of exhilaration you can’t find anywhere else. China’s red is a different kind of red. It stands on its own, it means tradition and luck and peace, it means the ferocity of a will to fight and to survive and to forge the way for a better life. My life.

* * *

The gray cityscape gives way to azure sky and emerald hills as we drive deeper and deeper into the NaXi countryside. We’re eager to escape the monotonous view that so often fills our sight living in one of the most populated cities in China. Seas of people are slowly replaced by seas of corn and wheat, dotted with thatched huts and humble red brick homes.

The road is empty except for our car and a sense of timelessness catches me by surprise. Driving this one-lane winding road I could continue forever without noticing the passage of time. To the left, a patch of color catches my eye. Shoulder-high yellow flowers stretch forth invitingly and we stop the car. I get out and I stand in this pool of bright yellow flowers. I breathe in the color. Oh, please let me stay forever. Don’t make me leave.

* * *

The cobbled paths of the 1,000 year-old stone village are uneven and weathered, but full of character, marked by the cheerful scars of daily use. The sky blends seamlessly with the roofs, the harsh angles dissolving into sheets of gray. Relying on my father’s fluent Mandarin, we’re led by a guide clearly flustered at the odd request to lead a dozen foreigners through the town. To her, it is where she has lived her entire adult life. To us, it is a piece of living history.

Atop the flat tile roof of a “si he yuan,” or courtyard home, I can look out and see the history of this little piece of China reflected in the gray brick buildings. Some are tall and upright, others lean as if bent with age, and some are short and square like the bricks they are made of, but each has a unique personality. As I glance down one of the crooked alleyways, I meet the steely eyes of one of the village’s older residents. Caught off guard, the man scurries like a mouse into an adjoining alleyway, eager to escape my stare. To him I am a foreigner, an unfamiliar face, an impostor. It doesn’t matter how many villages I visit, how many pairs of eyes I meet, how many breaths of Chinese air I breathe, I’m a “wai guo ren.” I’m the foreign one.

* * *

We finally escaped the tourist trap the ancient town of Lijiang has become. Instead of the cameras and the same five trinkets sold by 500 different people, we’re surrounded by children in blue uniforms skipping as they return home from school. The elder generation looks on, their heads topped by worn navy caps. As I look around me I’m overwhelmed by a sense of community. Younger women exchange gossip as they balance babies in blue pants on their hips. Teenagers playfully push one another around, blue backpacks carrying homework that will mostly likely get, done but not without much procrastination. Everyone greets everyone like an old neighbor --- my obviously foreign family is no exception.

Standing to the side is an older woman, astonished by the presence of six people that clearly don’t belong ethnically. She reaches out and with a nod of consent from my father embraces my younger sister. The gentle folds of her aging face crinkle like tissue paper as her mouth stretches into a toothy grin. My sister starts to cry, but all I can think about is what it must feel like. What it must feel like to want to hold someone you’ve never met before tightly in your arms. Hold me too. I belong here. I want to belong here.

* * *

No one is asleep despite the late hour. The city of Zheng Ding is as alive and awake as it was this morning when the street was crowded with vendors of vegetables and fruits. The carts and stalls have been cleared away, leaving the sidewalk exposed and vulnerable. As I make my way down the main street, neon signs shine brightly in every direction. Hair salons, restaurants, night markets, bars, pharmacies --- daily life doesn’t stop when the day ends here.

The city square is bustling with activity, the glow of the neon signs keeping those in the crowd from colliding and stepping on each others’ toes. Drawn to the neon haze and the clang and crash of traditional Chinese music, I find myself hand-in-hand with elderly Chinese women. Their smiles are reflected in my face as we move in time to the music. I don’t know the steps and they don’t know me, but somehow the choreography falls into place. The circle of dancers moves rhythmically around the square, the accompaniment punctuated by friendly laughter. Sometimes the shadows of night cover our faces and at other times they are lit up by the nearby signs. I can see everyone’s expression clearly. Smile: China is watching.

* * *

I lazily walk the path of the ancient walled town. On all four sides rise towering gray walls that seem to swallow up the rust colored houses. The grey of winter not quite yet spring permeates every surface. Large woven baskets laden with cobs of golden corn fill the courtyards. This and the red eaves of the temples provide the only color.

An old man traces Chinese characters in the camel-colored dirt, attempting to communicate with my father. His heavily accented Mandarin has failed him, and the crude characters are his last resort. My mother and I suppress laughter as my father feigns ignorance and smiles politely. The old man’s friends with their identical black padded coats watch on, interested and equally amused at the exchange between their comrade and this “da bi zi,” this “big-nosed foreigner.” Finally the man surrenders his attempts, tips his green Commie hat, and saunters off to provide his friends with a more detailed account of his exploits. This is camaraderie. This is community. This is China.

* * *

Sometimes it feels like I don’t belong anywhere. My hair is not black, my eyes are not dark, and my tongue has trouble twisting to form the sounds of the Chinese language. I’ve never asked someone to a Sadie Hawkins dance or eaten a burger at In-N-Out, and I don’t know any of the songs on the American radio.

The colors of my life in China keep flashing behind my closed eyelids. Like images in a kaleidoscope that shift with every turn of the wrist, the colors I see in China piece together as though they’re completing a portrait of myself. But I don’t understand it. How do the little pieces magically fit together? Why do the mirrors contort the image? Is this really a portrait of myself or simply a fuzzy watercolor of who I wish I was?

I don’t see myself as a constant, complete image. But looking through the kaleidoscope I see shapes --- shapes that cannot be defined and yet are beautiful in their own right, formed by those little fragments of color. Navy caps, me, neon signs. Me, brown dirt. Red lanterns, yellow flowers, me. Me, China. China, me. Shifting, shifting with each gentle turn.