Host Family Reflections
A Letter to Nan
Reprinted from Spring 1996 SYA Newsletter
by Olivia Newman FR'95
The following reprint of a letter written by Olivia to her grandmother in January 1995, evokes the passage from apprehension to appreciation during her year abroad.
Dear Nan,
I remember packing my bags for France, stuffing more clothes and trinkets in the carry-on bag than it was made for, and crying as dad pulled out socks from this pocket and shorts from this one. "Do you really need all this stuff?" he kept asking me in his rhetorical yet obviously concerned voice, adding an anxious scrunch of his brows to prove his sympathy. I remember how harsh the word “need” sounded. Of course I needed the precious souvenirs that represented my life. And I cried back resentfully, "I'm trying to pack my life into three bags!" And it really felt like whatever I could find space for in these three canvas bags, whatever earrings I poked through slightly opened zippers when my dad looked away, were the only part of my life I could bring with me to the unknown world.
Here in France, however, I made a life out of nothing but what I carry on my shoulders every day, a life that smells as much like home to me as the Hudson River; a home that is so comfortable and real to me that I am once again scared to leave.
I have taken up routines here that are as much of a ritual to me as the hot summer days of waiting for Mr. Softee on the cool concrete steps of 225. Now running home in the cold Rennes rain, bursting through the door at 30 bis, and announcing a soft salut to the Blécons before making myself coffee is my daily routine. Saturday night dinner guests no longer gather in the living room playing guitars and singing the traditional family songs. Instead, they spend the evening sitting at the dinner table for four to five hours, conversing, debating and sighing with awe as each carefully prepared course is served one after another after another.
While I miss the traditions I grew up with at home, I've found new rituals here. And although I couldn't pack away dad's pinches and mom's hugs or the cackling of Danielle's soft laugh, I haven't lost them. I'll never lose them. They are a part of my memory and a part of me that can never be taken away.
I have brought with me the image of mom peeling Granny Smith apples, the flowing melody of dad's soft country tunes, and my life born-and-raised-in Hoboken, New Jersey. I have showered those stories and memories on the new people and world I've met here. Only now Therese's method of peeling apples is a more focused picture in my life, while the scene of mom jabbering away and slicing apples is blurry. I've become as comfortable hanging out after school in cafés with Liz and Courtney as I was lingering in Church Square Park with Jennie and Danielle. I'm so comfortable with these new habits that I fall back into the same fear of leaving.
I keep waking up in the middle of the night on a pillow damp with tears, scared I'm clutching my bed back in Hoboken ... scared to be in the same bed my parents had to tear me away from just five months ago! In each dream I find myself at the airport sooner than I expected, begging my directors to let me stay, insisting I haven't completed my year. I haven't memorized all the cracks in the sidewalk on rue St. Michel or all the billboards along the quai.
Yet, I can't spend the rest of my time in Rennes anticipating and fearing the day I leave, the way I wasted too many hours of my summer. I have to take advantage of every moment I have left, whether remaining at the dinner table a few extra minutes to discuss politics or taking a spontaneous walk through the Thabor Garden to indulge myself in the blooming smells.
When I walk out the door of my Edmond Rostand world, I want to carry with me three lighter suitcases filled with twice as many memories and experiences of an unregrettable year in France. I can already think of a dozen stories to tell around the fireplace at Duff's next Christmas! Hope Garden Street is as sunny as I left it!
Write back soon. Love and strength, Livi.
Chinese Sister Was the Heart of Beijing Experience
Reprinted from Fall/Winter 1997 SYA Newsletter
by Cáitrín McKiernan CN’97
The other night, as my family and I celebrated my little brother's birthday in California, I thought of the loneliness of my “sister” in China. I call her my sister because of the four months that I spent with her family in Beijing.
Because of China's one-child-per-family policy, Mei Mei, my 16-year-old Chinese counterpart, has no siblings. Her parents had a son, but he was killed in an earthquake. Mei Mei was born three years later, and she will always be an only child.
Parents who decide to have more than one child run the risk of punishment. In some cases, parents with government jobs are fined or housing subsidies are revoked. My sister told me that families with more than one child are taxed about $5,000 extra a year. That is a lot of money considering that my Chinese host mother, the chief obstetrician at a prominent Beijing hospital, makes about $1,500 a year.
National Day, the biggest holiday of the year, was the rare time when our small apartment was filled with out-of-town guests. Mei Mei was most excited about the arrival of her cousin. She dropped to the floor, chasing his ping pong ball, constantly referring to him as her “brother.” When I asked her what the word for cousin was in Chinese, I was astounded that she didn't know. She had to ask her mother. When no one has siblings, your cousins become your brothers and sisters.
I was amazed every Monday when Mei Mei and her 1,200 schoolmates stood on the athletic field, sang the national anthem, and hailed the Communist flag. Mei Mei was a member of the Young Communists League, but at the same time she told me that “the 1989 uprisings were right, the government was corrupt, and not much had changed as a result.” I asked Mei Mei, “How can you say that the government has problems yet still support Communism, a system that is failing?” Mei Mei explained that the promise of Communism - equality and the sharing of resources - is great, even if it doesn't always work.
At school the other SYAers and I took three Chinese language classes a day, taught by Chinese teachers, as well as English, math, and a Chinese history course taught by American teachers. This was quite a contrast to Mei Mei's workload of 12 courses. While grades are important for Chinese students, getting into college is mostly judged on a single exam which is given at the end of the school year. It is a comprehensive test of all the courses taken and is the same in every school in China. Something you learned your sophomore year may well come up on your senior year exam to get into college.
The competition is cutthroat: all test scores are posted and students are reluctant to help each other learn. Everyone wants an edge on the next guy. I came to realize that I was supposed to be Mei Mei's “edge” for learning English, and that was a big reason that I was living with them. That didn't bother me, but it made it hard that Mei Mei always wanted to speak English, while I always wanted to speak Chinese. We ended up helping each other.
Many U.S. schools send students to China, but School Year Abroad is the only program permitted by the Chinese government to place students with Chinese families. By the end of the term, I began to understand why that was so valuable. A week before I returned to Santa Barbara, I looked back on all that I had done in China. But despite everything ― all of the museums, operas, martial arts classes, Buddhist temples, or even the Great Wall ― I realized that the heart of my Chinese experience was my sister Mei Mei. On my last night in China, I took Mei Mei out to a disco for foreigners, a place few Chinese teenagers ever visit. She danced and had fun, but she told me that she thought that most Americans were cold and aloof. After midnight, back in the apartment, we sat huddled under a blanket, giggling and eating an ice cream treat. It was time to say goodbye. She told me, “You can never truly get to know another culture, but we have done pretty well; we were fifty percent of the way there.”
I looked at Mei Mei, remarking to myself that her name can translate into English as “little sister.” And that is the way I will always remember her.