Mental Health

this (or a portion of this) will appear on a soon-to-be-updated peace corps china website to serve as a resource for current volunteers, soon-to-be volunteers, and their friends & family.  take a look

Stay Healthy Out There…

Hey.  Like a lot of what you’ll encounter in Peace Corps, the issue of mental health will vary widely from person to person; there’s no catch-all when it comes to what you can expect or how to address it.  However.  I’ve written up a quick blurb briefly discussing what I’ve personally experienced, and how I’ve personally dealt with it.  My hope is that even if you don’t relate exactly to what I have to say, you can take some inspiration from it and make it your own.  好不好?

The good news is that, when it comes to mental health, what works for you back home will still work for you here; you just need to adapt it a little bit, you need to Chinese-ify it.

Before coming to China, I lived in Portland, Oregon (you ever been?  it’s seriously great).  As a young man of the pacific northwest, I found my me-time in Forest Park, or hiking around Mt. Hood, or out in a state park by the coast.

Those kinds of spaces gave me the time, quiet, and good juju I needed to right myself, do some thinking, and see something cool all at the same time.

Now, ‘righting yourself’ is important.  You’re all alone in a weird place, and that can wear on you pretty hard at times.  And while Chongqing doesn’t have a Forest Park or Multnomah Falls, what it does have are Buddhist and Taoist Temples.  And for me, that does it.

Temples are quiet.  There are few people.  They smell nice (the temples, I mean).  And they’re absolutely beautiful.  It didn’t take me long to find one right by my school.

And I lucked out.  The temple by my school is actually a monastery that houses over 30  Buddhist monks and nuns (robes and all), a gigantic golden Buddha statue, and most importantly for me, an outdoor teahouse.

The teahouse inside the monastery gives me the quiet time I need away from the craziness that is Chongqing: the constant noise, the stares, the wild dogs, and 15 million other people being around all the time – and it allows me an opportunity to recharge.  I quickly realized this was going to be my Forest Park – this was going to be best place for me to find my me-time.

And so it was.  I go there at least once a week.  I sit at a small wooden table, ask for a cup of flower tea, and enjoy the air away from the highways, the sound of the wind in the trees, and the occasional nods from monks.  It’s not Cannon Beach, but it does the job, and that’s the important thing.

5 Steps to Keeping Your Marbles  

1.  Be more deliberate and proactive about this stuff.  ‘Maintaining’ will take a lot more effort here than it does back home.  You need to be deliberate about it.  More than once I’ve had to force myself out of my apartment even though I didn’t want to because I knew I needed it.

2.  Start a few little habits early on; hang out at the same noodle shop every Monday afternoon, spend Sunday evenings with a cool shop-owner.  I’m totally serious.  I bring my dinners downstairs to a shop-owner most Sundays now and eat with her.  She has her bowl of rice, I have my plate of stir-fried veggies, and we keep each other company.  It feels really good.

3.  Find a way to make something you like very much in the States possible here, and then do it often.  (I visit the temple at least once a week.  That place is a God Buddha send).

4.  Be ready for the challenge.  This advice is good, but it’s no magic spell.  Be ready for what Calvin’s dad calls ‘character building.’

5.  Finally, don’t forget about your fellow PCVs!  It’s easy to disappear within your site; don’t hesitate to reach out to a neighboring volunteer and meet for a quick dinner of goat and ‘laowai-time.’

…I’m interested in what other pcvs think about this.  What has your experience been like staying sane out there?  What do you do?  What’s been difficult about that?  What is this list missing?

shameless plug

this is a plug for a good buddy of mine, justin calderon, and his blog.

we met at marist, and he’s gone on to travel asia quite extensively in the years since.  he’s fluent in chinese, has been featured in the new york times and the global post, and currently lives in malaysia.

his blog is a great collection of amazing insights, stories, and current events from around the region, and I strongly recommend checking it out.

his latest post, published a few days ago, concerns the GIANT protest in kuala lumpur this past saturday.  the ruling party in malaysia has been in power since 1957, and the malaysian citizens are demanding reform.

check it out.

justincalderon.wordpress.com

the questions they have

so I want to quickly repost something another volunteer threw up on his blog a little while back.

he’s a 17, the newest group of volunteers to arrive in china (they’ve been here just shy of a year now) and is also in chongqing, although at quite a more advanced school than mine… and he’s really cool.

this post of his is about a project he’s doing around stereotypes, and he gave his class a chance to write some questions they have for americans, the stereotypes they might have about chinese, and whether what they (the chinese students) perceive americans to be like is true or not.  he posts the questions they have, and he’s encouraging those that read his blog to help him prepare answers

I’m reposting this because the questions they have are incredibly telling of where their heads are with regard to this stuff, what their lives are like, and what they (college students, mind you) know of the us and the world around them

a couple of my favorite questions from these students are:

- why do you like rugby?

-does everybody own a gun?

- is it hard to get along with black american?

- when you fall in love as a teenager, are your parents and teachers against it?

again, they’re a great little window into the minds of college students in southwestern china, and I recommend reading more of his post (and maybe helping him with some answers!)

here’s the link.  enjoy.

Let me come home…!

My time in the Peace Corps is almost up, and that’s insanely hard to believe.  It’s been 2 years, friend.  Two YEARS!

The last official Peace Corps function is called the Close of Service (COS) conference, and it’s coming up at the end of April.

At the COS conference we will get checked out by PC medical (remove parasites), take language placement tests (see how far we came), get briefed on how and when exactly we can leave (there’s a new law that says we can fly with american airlines only) and, I imagine, fill out a bunch of paperwork (it’s the government).

This is the last big to-do.  After the COS conference, we’ll all go back to our sites, finish up our semesters, then get on a plane by ourselves without any more pomp & circumstance as we wave goodbye to China.  It’s really kind of anti-climactic.

But the ‘how and when exactly we can leave’ part is what we’re all talking about.  See because our schools have different schedules, we’re not all “done” on the same day.  Peace Corps schedules our own individual COS date, or last official day as a Peace Corps Volunteer, in accordance with our school, and it’s that day that we can fly home (or at least leave China).

I received my COS date in an email a couple days ago.  My last day as a Peace Corps volunteer is July 3rd, 2012!!!  I left for China on June 30th, 2010 so all in all we’re looking at two years and three days in the People’s Republic.

You have a couple options when leaving your host-country.  Because Peace Corps pays for your to and from trips, the first option is to let them take care of it; they’ll book you a ticket home the day after you COS and arrange for the necessary transportation to get your there.  But because many volunteers choose to take their time and do some traveling once they’re officially off the clock, the second option is to take “cash in lieu.”  PC calculates how much the ticket home will cost you and then direct deposits that amount into your account.

My family and I are celebrating a couple things this summer (my sister the nurse, for one!), so we’ve already got some big plans lined up.  As a result, I need to get home asap.

SO THAT MEANS

depending on how Peace Corps schedules my flights and layovers, there’s a good shot I’ll be home on July 4th!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

see you all soon

also, have a pizza ready.

Congrats Eddie & Joanna

Two very dear friends of mine were just married on March 31st and, unfortunately, I was unable to attend the wedding.

So instead, I worked with some of my classes to make a little video wishing them all the best.

they were extremely excited to be a part of it, and didn’t even mind having to practice the word “congratulations” over and over again (which, really, is pretty tough to say!)

…we also spent some time trying to get rid of the vocalized syllables at the end of words (ex: ‘con-grat-u-la-tion-si’), but it was nearly.. and comically.. impossible.

the woman you see in the middle of the video is who I refer to as “my Chinese mom.”  she’s been, without a doubt, one of THE best parts of my experience here, and I’m going to have a really tough time saying goodbye to her when the time comes.  I’ll do a post solely devoted to her before I leave, without a doubt.  so stay tuned.

enjoy!

Chongqing: Fog City

I live in a small neighborhood on the outskirts of a REALLY big city, one of the most densely populated in the world.

The visibility, on a given day, is close to nil.  So if being huddled directly between, on top of, and behind over 15 million people doesn’t leave you gasping for breath, the thick air and low-hanging ceiling definitely might.

Enjoy these photos of home from British photographer Martin Stavars taken earlier this year.

….then, wherever you are, go outside and take a deep breath for me

Censorsh–

update:  I’m gonna throw this link up here.  it’s an article published in the national post by rebecca mackinnon about the internet in china, and how while it’s helped to shift power toward the people, the holes and restrictions leave chinese citizens wildly distorted with regard the rest of the world and even their own country.  it’s fascinating. 

now for my own personal experience…

Facebook, as I’m sure you’re aware, has been banned in China, as has Twitter; your page “cannot be found” whenever you try them.  But, there are a couple pretty good knock-offs (surprise surprise).

The one I use is called Sina Weibo.  ’Weibo’ is Chinese for “micro-blog,” and is like Facebook and Twitter combined.  Users can post up to 140 characters, along with photos and video, repost things they find interesting, and mention other users with the same @username function that you see in Twitter.  You can also send private messages and include little tid-bits about yourself on your own profile page.  And it’s hugely popular; as of February 2012, it had over 300 million users.

So it’s a big deal.  Just about every one of my students and Chinese friends uses it (or at least something like it; there are a few competing brands).

And, generally speaking, it’s pretty free.  I’ve seen much stronger opinions around sensitive issues (Communist Party, Tibet, etc) than I expected to.  But with that in mind, we are still in China.  According to Wikipedia:

“Sina sets strict controls over the posts on its services.  Posts with links using some URL shortening services (including Google’s goo.gl), or containing blacklisted keywords, are not allowed on Sina Weibo. Posts on politically sensitive topics are deleted after manual checking.  According to anti-online censorship activist Rebecca MacKinnon, Sina Weibo is believed to employ approximately 1,000 people to monitor and censor its users.”

And some of that “manual checking” just happened early this week.  I logged onto Weibo on Saturday to find this message:

各位微博用户：
最近，微博客评论跟帖中出现较多谣言等违法有害信息。为进行集中清理，从3月31日上午8时至4月3日上午8时，暂停微博客评论功能。清理后，我们将再开放评论功能。进行必要的信息清理，是为了有利于为大家提供更好的交流环境，希望广大用户理解和谅解。感谢大家的支持。

Very roughly translated (with alot of help from google) it says the following:

Dear Users: 
Recently, comments on this micro-blog have been full of rumors and other illegal and harmful information.  In order to concentrate on cleaning it up, we will suspend the ‘comment’ function from 8:00am on March 31st to 8:00am on April 3rd.  The clean-up of the necessary information will happen in order to facilitate a positive environment and to provide better understanding to the majority of our users. Thank you for your support.

so that was the deal.  And the thing about rumors flying around is true.  Somehow, word started going around that there was some kind of coup happening in Beijing, and it was apparently spread so widely that corrective measures were taken.  While you could still post your 140 characters, the feature that allowed you leave comments on people’s posts was turned off while the comments that already existed were scrubbed.

As culturally integrated as I am, this still shocked the stuffins out of me.  Truth be told, there really isn’t alot of “SCARY CHINESE OPPRESSION” in your face day-to-day (though it depends where you live I suppose…).  And I had sorta forgotten that this not only happens, but is totally normal and legal and out in the open.  Most of the censorship happens by omission, rather than covering up.  I’ve heard a few people tell a joke about how if they’re ever feeling down about China and the direction it’s headed, they turn on CCTV Channel 7 News and soak in the pro-China and CCP “announcements” until they feel better.

Now, during this 3-day ‘clean up,’ a few posts went around making sly and and not-so-sly commentary on the whole thing.  Instead of commenting on them, users would just repost them to share with their friends.  I saw a Chinese friend of mine repost one of them, and I decided to get in on it.  Basically it was an imagined interview concerning the clean-up where the interviewee used a play on words to tear it apart while sounding very positive to the untrained ear.  Clever, I thought, so I reposted it.  Cut to Tuesday morning when the clean-up was finished, and I saw this where that post used to live on my page:

抱歉，此微博不适宜对外公开。如需帮助，请联系客服。

Which, again very loosely translates to:

Sorry, this microblogging is not suitable for being open to the public. For help, please contact customer service.

I’d been cleaned.  Someone, somewhere, decided that little joke shouldn’t be seen by the public.

So that’s all.  My little adventure in Chinese-censorship.  Fun, right?

…I don’t mean for this to be a rant about or against the CCP, by the way.  This was, simply, my very first encounter with real, raw government censorship; it affected me, and I wanted to share it.