(Note: This is a continuation of a few posts I did previously talking about what it’s like here in Xining.  Here are posts number 1 and number 2 in the series…)

The students pour from the classrooms like fire ants erupting from a collapsed anthill.  They scramble out of the concrete and glass jiaoshilou’s (classroom buildings) like they are being thrown from vehicles in a multi-car crash.  I can almost hear the pealing of their tires, the burning of rubber on pavement, the swerving, unnerving white-knuckled processional that speeds forth as class lets out.

(I am in Xining.)

I am a crash victim, too–a barely-survivor.  Every day I’m afraid that, "this time the brain damage is permanent.  This time my mind won’t go back into its original form.  This time Mandarin has maimed me for sure…"   I worry that in second language learning it might be possible to puncture that brown bag in my brain that precariously holds my first language.  My English is eroding as my Putonghua (Mandarin) improves.  It might be leaking out as we spea…what’s that word again?

"Wo can shuo English."

Or is it, "I hui speak Hanyu?"

Aah / Aiya!  It’s happening already.  I mutter to myself on the long walk home.  Chinese women carrying vegetables question my sanity.  Big-nosed, hairy chinned Waiguoren (foreigner) walking down the street with a metal coffee cup strapped to his backpack murmuring Chinglish monosyllabic phrases while watching every step to avoid the dung trail before him…I can’t blame them.  I question my sanity.

(I am in Xining.)

Blue-sports-suited middle schoolers are on their way home for lunch.  I find it intriguing that this age group somehow sits at a bonfire just outside of culture.  Wherever you go in the world, middle school / junior high holds the same meaning.  They move in packs; they have a constantly wary expression on their faces; their laughs are nervous and overdone; I think it’s because they know they are carnivorous creatures who are not afraid to eat their own.  I remember this Lord of the Flies tendency and it still makes me nervous around 13-year-olds.  I wonder if today I will be the subject of their laughter.  I know some will inevitably say, "hello…" but I don’t expect what sometimes comes next.  One day a middle schooler in his herd said to me, "Wo chi ham bao bao," and laughed maniacally.  I didn’t know, "I eat hamburgers" could feel so derogatory.  But it’s funny, too.  Just like these crazy kids who are getting their first taste of the unapologetic world of hormones.  Regardless of their culture, I always feel sorry for them.

Most days I don’t pay attention to the roaming herds; I just walk and wonder what awaits me at home.  My brain slowly returns to its former state.  Playdough is resilient stuff.  I have forgotten most of whatever I have learned in class but I say a quick prayer that some of it stuck to the outside of the 1st language brown bag in my head and that I can find a trace or stain of it at a later time.  I am glad to enter the gates of our complex and see the camou-wearing "security" guards reading their papers in the sun.  I envy them and their ceramic brains that require less flexibility and molding.  I watch the old Hui men with their white hats, long beards, and black / blue suits.  They sit on stools and stare up the lane.  Squatting has its merits I suppose.  Their invisible brains seem weathered to me like ancient parchment filled with runes I can’t comprehend.  Their thoughts are probably much more complex and simplistic than I am suggesting, but that’s how I imagine these old-timers, anyway.

(I am in Xining.)

The mountain is there, too, in the distance.  He always greets me; in the morning, afternoon, and night.  We are old friends now.  He is my quiet gege (big brother) who looks out for me but pretends to be uncaring.  He is greener now than I have ever seen him and I think that’s a good look for him.  As I turn the corner and climb the steps I am looking forward to a few things.

1. Putting down my book bag.
2. Taking off my shoes.
3. Eating a delicious lunch.

I am not disappointed.  Lunch is on the table.  My family is waiting. Classes are a just a fender bender in the rear-view–quickly forgotten.  Now my poor brain is pulsating with only the sparks of the lunch life around me: vegetables, rice, noodles, laughter, chicken, news, conversation, toddlers, wife, baomu, Hanyu, and rest.  The rest of the world can wait until my tummy is full (chi bao le…)

(I am in Xining.)