The power of place: Boston edition

I’ve lived in Boston for 6 months now. I’m still in the phase where I sometimes say to myself, “I live here” as I walk down the street. It’s not that I ever idealized Boston, or that I dreamed of moving here someday. In fact, I often was annoyed at the constant exclamations by friends who lived here to “COME VISIT!” and “MOVE TO BOSTON!” (You know who you are.) Could this city really be that great?

The answer, I’m coming to believe, is yes. I’m still very new, and I still have a lot to learn. Winter, for example, barely existed this year — we had about 4 inches total of snow for the entire season. But I find myself thinking daily how lucky I am to live here, and how excited I am to explore this city, state, and region.

Moving to Boston and starting a job where I travel quite frequently has put the power of place at the front of my mind. How much does it matter that I live in Boston, Massachusetts, instead of Appleton, Wisconsin, or Buffalo, New York? How much does place impact my happiness? Are the cultures of cities really that different? And if so, how do we decide where we belong?

I have said for years that I’m a big city person, which is why I went to college in Washington DC, adore cities like Beijing and London, and now find myself in the biggest city in New England. But at what point, if any, is the allure of giant metropolises just a phase? Will there be a time when I would actually enjoy living in a smaller, quieter setting?

I ended up in Boston partly by chance — it’s where the job was! So I think that makes this a good setting for me to answer some of these questions. I never thought I would belong here. Stereotypes told me that Bostonians are cold and rude, and being a Midwesterner I would be very unhappy (I have found the opposite to be true). Time will tell if the culture of the city matches my personality through and through, or if living here is just a temporary “good time.”

But for now, I’m here. I don’t have to make any decisions about place for a while, so I’m just going to soak it all in. I’m learning how to pronounce town names like Gloucester, Worcester, Peabody, and Leominster. I’m memorizing the differences among Green Lines B, C, D, and E. I’m mapping the neighborhoods of Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline and beyond by what kinds of international restaurants they specialize in, what group of college kids live nearby, and the level of frustration the residents feel about their commute. I’m coming to realize that Copley Square, Kenmore Square, Davis Square, Harvard Square, and the probably hundreds of other “squares” in New England are not really squares at all. I’m learning that Massachusetts is a state with a strong connection to history, an impressive commitment to education and community, and a population made up of people from every corner of the globe. No wonder people are proud to live here.

Just a short walk away from my apartment. Boston knows how to charm!

The Plan

It’s our last week in Pittsburgh. The plan was to find jobs by now. I mean, there are two of us. Two people with master’s degrees and solid resumes. But there aren’t a lot of jobs out there. And for every job I apply to, I’m pretty certain there are 200 other people competing for it. So the first plan, the plan to move wherever one of us found a job, is not going to happen.

The second plan is to move where we think we will have the best chances at finding jobs in our fields (me: international education; Jon: public policy). Take a risk and just jump in. That place is San Francisco and its surrounding cities. The past two months have been dedicated to applying to jobs in the bay area, looking at neighborhoods we’d like to live in, and planning the two-week cross-country road trip. Our plan is to leave Pittsburgh next week, drive to lots of fun places in the Midwest and beyond, and arrive in the bay area at the end of the month. Find a sublet for October, find jobs by November, and voila! Life!

But now there’s a third plan. This past week, we made the wonderful mistake of going to Toronto, Canada. We learned that the economy there is actually pretty good, and family members can help sponsor you as a temporary resident of Canada. So we’re going to look into this. We’re going to apply to jobs in Toronto, figure out what it really takes to get temporary residency and a work visa, and use this as the “back-up dream plan.”

So the ultimate plan is a hybrid plan. We’re still leaving Pittsburgh next week. We’re still driving west with our doggie and camping supplies. We’re still looking for sublets and jobs in San Francisco. We still plan to GET to San Francisco. But if Toronto can happen, we will stop everything and go there instead. Because really, who can say no to Canada?

If you have any advice about any of these plans, please share! Maybe we’re crazy, but it sure beats sitting around waiting.

will we be canadians?

or californians?

The most interesting topic in the world

Well, at least to me it is. I love my thesis topic. I love it so much that I don’t actually want to stop working on it. Which is just fine, because my topic translates pretty easily into a career. I’m writing about Western volunteers in China, particularly those who work in education. I’m interviewing people who are current or recently returned volunteer teachers or camp counselors in China. Of course my summer working with educational volunteers in Beijing inspired and helped me develop this topic.

students during their singing and art performance at xiwang zhixing school in outer beijing

There are lots of opportunities to volunteer abroad these days. Most of these are in the form of a paid volunteer vacation. The combination of volunteering and tourism is fascinating. When young Westerners pay thousands of dollars to spend a month or so in a developing country working on a “project” — anything from teaching English, to working with endangered animals, to building houses — countless impacts and concerns arise:

• What are young people really looking to get out of the experience? Is this just glorified tourism? Or worse: poverty tourism?
• Who are the host communities, and do they invite and welcome these projects and visitors?
• How are ethics maintained and for-profit tourism industries monitored to prevent exploitation of volunteers and hosts? Where does all that money go?
• What kinds of relationships are formed between volunteers and hosts? Do these relationships encourage sustainability or dependency?
• How do volunteer-host relationships impact racism, ethnocentrism, and bigotry? Do volunteers become more culturally sensitive and aware?
• What is the ultimate goal of international volunteering? Will it help make our world more socially just?

These are the questions running through my mind as I research Chinese education and the role of foreign volunteers. I’m focusing on the first, fourth, and sixth questions in my thesis. I’m hoping that all this work will be helpful for international volunteer organizations who are concerned about these same issues and dedicated to ethical practice. The potential impacts of volunteer tourism are huge for so many people: for the development aid industry, for educators and students of international issues, and especially for the communities that host foreign volunteers. And in a few months, I hope to have a job that lets me work on this!

Mourning and marketing

These have been an interesting couple of days for China. Yesterday the government declared a national day of mourning for the nearly 2,000 victims of the mudslides in Gansu Province. This meant the flags flew at half-staff, all things fun were shut down for 24 hours, and the TV stations were only allowed to play footage and news from Gansu. Apparently everyone was also supposed to wear black and white, but I didn’t get that memo until around dinner time. A friend of mine had his birthday on August 15 and really wanted to go to a local amusement park. But of course, that was closed for mourning day. Clubs closed at midnight on Saturday night. Any planned concerts or entertainment venues were shut down. But for some reason the zoo was open. I don’t get that.

I spent the day at a friend’s apartment learning how to cook Chinese vegetables that have no proper English translation. She flipped through all the channels on her TV to prove to me that no other shows were on all day long. None of the Chinese people I spoke to seemed very surprised about the national day of mourning. It has happened before, they said. I think as an outsider it is fascinating to me because it is an example of how strong the central government really is here. This country is enormous, and the government was able to shut down EVERY form of entertainment (except zoos – must keep pandas) and EVERY TV show for an entire 24 hours. Can you imagine if the United States government did that on the anniversary of 9/11?

This makes me wonder about the motives of this kind of thing. Of course I have no answers. But I wonder, what does the government get out of a national day of mourning? What does it do to the population’s psyche? Why go to such great lengths to make people think about a mudslide disaster? Is there an environmental message here? A rah-rah government message? Please tell me if you have thoughts.

The other interesting day is today, Chinese valentine’s day! Also known as Double Seven Festival, for the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. Basically there is an old Romeo and Juliet type story of forbidden love, and it ends tragically of course. Death and sadness. Oh, love. Anyway, traditionally this story teaches women how to be good wives, but that kind of message just won’t do in modern China. Hell no! Instead they take on western qualities: buy some roses, some stuffed bears, and go have dinner.

It doesn’t seem like the Chinese valentine’s day comes with the pressure and loneliness that a lot of Americans associate with 2/14. My single friends didn’t really care about today. The couples went out to dinner. That’s that. But the displays of love that I did see on the street were certainly entertaining. The flowers were beautiful, and the ratio of men holding their wives’ purses was higher than normal. But the real gems were the odd-ball and way-too-large gifts. I was pushed out of the way in line for the bus by a man carrying a teddy bear the SIZE OF ME. You know that bear is taking up a bus seat during rush hour, right? I hope the bus lady made the bear pay the whopping 0.4 RMB bus fare (about 6 US cents). The other charmer sped by me on a motorbike: a giant framed photograph of two pinkie fingers locked together…enclosed in a giant pink heart, of course! I am sure this will hang in their dining room forever, reminding them that true love comes already framed.

Again, do I really have to leave this place?

China’s construction controversy

Lucky for me, the New York Times has a similar obsession with all things China. But not so lucky for China, the news inherently simplifies and dramatizes issues. I imagine that many American readers get horrible, or at least frightening, impressions of China when they read these things. Two recent articles stand out to me, both dealing with development and construction, knocking down the old to make way for the new.

The first article is actually a photo essay depicting the massive apartment buildings that are being rapidly constructed up and down the east coast to make room for the increasing urban population. The second article is very close to home for me. It features Gulou, the neighborhood where my school is located, and the site of much demolition of the traditional Beijing housing called hutong. My school, of course, is called the Hutong School. One-story hutongs are being quickly replaced with multi-story modern apartments.

I’m sharing these two articles not because I have any answers to the construction controversy, or even any strong opinions. Instead I am sharing these because I think they help demonstrate how complicated and fascinating China really is, especially when it comes to the relationship between old and new. Many people outside of China would probably read both of these articles and react quite negatively to the urban construction boom. I’m not saying they would be wrong, but I do think their judgments may come too quickly.

I have worked in historical preservation, so clearly I am not a fan of bulldozing every old structure that’s in your way. The hutongs of Beijing are really interesting, and I love living and going to school within them. So it is really easy to find yourself saying, “No! Don’t knock down my hutongs!” However, it’s easy to overlook the reality of the hutongs in favor of a romanticized, historical image. Hutongs rarely have indoor plumbing, heat, gas, AC, etc. For some residents, a modern apartment with water and gas may be what they actually prefer. As tourists and outsiders, we can’t really judge that.

But we do anyway. We like to think that the rest of the world should keep some kind of historical genuineness, so we can travel there and witness something “different.” If you take away the hutongs, how will the tourists see the “real” Beijing?! Well, I live in a giant apartment complex that most likely required the demolition of many hutongs to construct. And I live in the “real” Beijing. Every night I smile at the same faces, the same old men sitting on their portable benches, the same old ladies doing tai chi, the same babies chasing puppies, and the same boys playing basketball. Maybe my neighbors used to live in hutongs. Maybe their lives changed a lot when they moved into apartments, for better or worse. But no matter what, I cannot say that their lives are less genuine or less “Chinese” because they aren’t living in a certain type of building.

i eat hutongs for breakfast

Any move that China makes can be criticized when it comes to development. For example, another article I saw recently criticized Beijing for having bad traffic jams and long commute times. The city has been building its subway system at an astounding rate to help combat this. Building cheap, sustainable public transportation is a good thing, right? Well, you need to build subway stations. And that means knocking down hutongs. And that means everyone gets sad. It’s a no-win situation.

Urban development attracts a lot of attention, especially when you are the biggest country on the planet. My hope is that the attention from the rest of the world can have a bit more empathy and a lot less judgment. It’s easy to write about or talk about China as a big, scary dragon that’s spinning out of control. It’s a lot more difficult to make the effort to truly understand China, and perhaps find common ground. Yes, they’re big, and flawed, and some people get hurt when development comes to their neighborhood. It happens all over the world, including another huge nation I think you all know…