So here I am, back in Lanzhou, hungrily anticipating the beginning of school. Bits of my psyche are scattered all over China and the northeastern United States, putting down their roots while I frantically try to re-integrate myself and focus on who I am, where I am.

Being in New York for two months was rich and instructive. I savored friendship, companionship, relationship. I sailed the high seas of all those ships with new appreciation. It was a feast after a long fast. I overflowed with gratitude for things I’d taken for granted all of my life: unearned loyalty, tacit acceptance, predictable understanding, seasoned tolerance. Effortless communication. The constant presence of loving, beloved people. In the last few days there, every part of me resisted leaving; there was a constant ache behind my collarbone. I have much to be grateful for in China, but no matter how long I choose to stay here, I can never expect to have those very particular blessings. Those are the blessings of home.

Since leaving New York on August 6th, I’ve seen more of China. There are plenty of new photos. I joined my daughter, Dylan, in Beijing on the 7th. We spent three days there, seeing many of the predictable tourist attractions, but also walking wherever we could in the city to try to capture its flavor and any lingering odor of its history.

From there we flew to Chengdu, Sichuan, aiming to see the pandas at the Breeding and Research Center there. We didn’t really need the enchanting photos in this summer’s feature in National Geographic to draw us there. The NG article was patronizing in its tone, I thought, suggesting that without the technical help and financial support of the international conservation community, China would be bungling the pandas into inevitable extinction. I might have felt outrage over the article had I not already seen, to my horror, the inside of a Chinese hospital for human beings, not to mention daily evidence of China’s cavalier attitude toward preserving the environment. The panda center in Chengdu is well maintained and tourist-friendly. One of my favorite features was a billboard-size sign that proclaimed, “All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful . . ..” The quotation then trailed off in a string of dots. The next line of that hymn, “. . . The Lord God made them all,” is apparently better left unsaid in our God-less China!


Our plan had been to travel from Chengdu to Xi’An to see the archaeological dig of the renowned terra-cotta warrior statues, but we got stalled in Chengdu, and ended up taking the train directly to Lanzhou, Gansu, my Chinese home. (It’s frequently difficult to get train tickets; tales abound of plans derailed and of determined travelers riding endless hours in overcrowded “hard seat” coaches. We opted to stay in Chengdu until we could get our preferred tickets.) The 21-hour sleeper train journey offered views of agricultural, sub-tropical Sichuan, the heights of its mountains, the verdant southern Gansu landscape, and then the thinning vegetation of Gansu as we entered the southeastern portion of the Gobi Desert and approached Lanzhou. We shared our compartment with a friendly Chinese couple and their tiny daughter, exchanging snacks and inventing games.



















We spent nearly a week in Lanzhou; Dylan liked my city. We shopped , lounged in the parks, and feasted on spicy local specialties.

Migrant workers are the physical engine driving China’s explosive economic development. Anywhere there’s construction – buildings, roads, bridges, railroads, airports – the migrant force of impoverished rural laborers does the backbreaking work. The tents they occupy year round near construction sites are a familiar sight. The An De Gate Labor Market in Nanjing is the biggest in East China; in 2005, 800,000 workers sought jobs at An De Gate, where employers post openings and hire workers. The Amity Foundation, in a joint effort with the Nanjing Legal Bureau, has established a Legal Aid Station at An De Gate. Staffed primarily by young law students who volunteer their time, the project provides migrant workers with legal information and helps them settle disputes with employers.

On a recent summer afternoon, as a thunderstorm rumbled across humid Nanjing, I joined a group of Amity volunteers to visit the project and talk with administrators (through gifted Amity interpreter Ji Xiaodong). They were as interested to hear from us as we were to listen to them. We described the circumstances of migrant workers in our home countries, and compared them with the problems experienced by similar laborers in China. The labor market itself is a fascinating place. There was heavy security, which is probably the norm even without foreign visitors. We witnessed one scuffle between a worker and guards; he was outnumbered, subdued, whisked away from our prying eyes. The workers themselves were friendly and curious; we were made more conspicuous than usual by an entourage of local broadcasters with all their video gear.

I attended a Chinese wedding reception for the first time last Sunday – the first of many, since a number of my young teacher friends are engaged to be married. The bride, my colleague Cai Jing, and her husband greeted everyone as they entered the sunlit dining room of a downtown restaurant.


(In this instance, there was no marriage ceremony. The couple has been married for a few months, but since their hometown is in a distant province, this reception was for co-workers and local friends.) As we took our places at large, round dining tables, we found a two-liter bottle of orange-ade, a bottle of bai jiu, and a small heap of unwrapped cigarettes on each table. The dean of the groom’s academic department (Economics) made a speech, as did our dean. Waitresses began serving the cold dishes, followed by course after course of hot dishes. I was surrounded by friends I hadn’t seen all summer, so it was a banquet of food and conversation. As we dined, the bride and groom visited each guest individually with a toast of bai jiu in tiny, stemmed cups.


Minute cups are OK with me – the words "bai jiu" mean "white wine," but the drink is literally grain alcohol that can sometimes contains over 50 percent alcohol. Cai Jing exchanged her white western-style wedding gown for a traditional Chinese gown. We didn’t see Cai Jing and her husband sit down for even a moment throughout the festivities. Despite the formality and dignity of the occasion, our male colleagues played their boisterous, noisy drinking games. It’s unlikely that there was any bai jiu left over at the end of the day, although there may have been a surplus of orange-ade.

There are lots of billboards along the expressway between Lanzhou and the airport. One that recently caught my eye advertises an insurance firm. Insurance is a new idea in China, a fledgling industry. With insurance, I mused, comes the notion of liability. Liability brings accountability, safety standards and precautions, codes and warnings – "doing the right thing for the wrong reason" – something that has become almost comical in the U.S., but is conspicuously absent in China. I wonder if we will begin to see fewer manholes left gaping for weeks on end, fewer live wires dangling over pedestrian areas, more workers wearing protective gear?

Progress already? Yesterday I observed these two men installing a new air conditioner for a nearby building. The outside guy is wearing a harness, it appears, as he dangles out the window with his power drill, and later takes care of the electrical work.