My living room, or what will someday resemble a living room, is covered in books.  I got up early and decided to tackle some book boxes before breakfast.  Have I mentioned how much I love books?  (um, yes, and probably on this blog, too.)  Anyway, the goal here is to decrease the number of books that I own.  I’m attempting to be ruthless.  Before moving to China, my housemate sent me into the book room to decide what books I could part with, and I returned with one.  One book.  But now, my perspective is a little different, and I’m determined to get rid of some books.  So, I have three piles: books to keep, books to give to Goodwill or Salvation Army, books to give to friends.  So far, the piles are pretty even, which is amazing!  I try to ask myself: “Do you love this book?  Do you read this book?  Do you need this book?”  I promise myself about every ten minutes that I will go get a library card next week.  I also haven’t stopped to read any books, another miracle.  (There’s a pile for that, though.)

Every once in a while, I find one of THE books.  The first books.  The books I remember reading that first year I learned to read real books.  The books I read when I was five and six and seven.  Sadly, they’re recognizable because I put Garfield and Odi nameplates in them as a little girl.  But I would know them anyway.  They’re the books I don’t have to read anymore since I’ve read them so often.  I can just look at the book and close my eyes and be there.  I’m alone in the darkness with only touch to guide me like Laura in Child of the Silent Night.  I’m plowing through the heavy snow with Buck in The Call of the Wild or watching people pass on the road in India with Kim. I’m feeling the bombs drop all around the family in Of Whom the World Was Not Worthy or swinging on that pole with M.C. Higgins the Great. Whatever we read influences us in some way, but it would be interesting to understand how much those First Books shape our view of the world.  In my life, there are humorous or odd stories that demonstrate just exactly how these books shaped me.  More tubs of books are calling my name, but I’m left with the conviction that if I ever have children I will be deliberate in the choice of their First Books.  And I’m thankful for God’s grace in leading me to exactly the odd collection of First Books that I needed for my crazy life.

Today I had several conversations with friends at church regarding the question “How am I?”  The word change was mentioned most of the time or the word adjusting.  In one conversation, the term reverse culture shock was brought up.  Now I’m not a missiologist or a sociologist or any type of expert, but as someone who’s been experiencing change due to returning from living in China for two years and as someone who’s been watching dear friends handle similar change, I’m prepared to make a simple statement.

My dictionary widget defines culture shock as “the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life or set of attitudes.”  It doesn’t define reverse culture shock, but let’s assume that means experiencing the same feeling of disorientation by returning to your own culture, which is now unfamiliar.

I have my own views about culture shock, mainly that I’ve only really felt that actual disorientation a few times.  It’s more like culture strain, a constant feeling of adjusting that begins to weigh upon you.  And I’m not really sure if I’ve lived long enough outside my own American culture to really understand reverse culture shock.  But I can think of a couple of metaphors to describe what I’m going through personally.

For the last two years, I’ve been living a certain way and now I don’t have to live that way.  That’s probably the easiest explanation.  But imagine that for two years, I was Ebenezer Scrooge.  For two years, I hoarded money.  From the time I woke up until the time I went to bed, getting and keeping my money was a primary focus of my existence.  Or, imagine that I was a squirrel for two years that was collecting nuts for the winter.  Every day, all day, constantly, the acquisition and the use of nuts dominated my thoughts and actions.  That’s how it is to live in a foreign culture, except instead of money or nuts, I’ve been hoarding information.

Every day, all day, through every activity, there has been the shadow of trying to gain knowledge about the country and people and life of China.  “Where do people go to get this?  How do they handle this situation?  What do they do in response to this?  What does this mean?  Why?  Why?  Why?”  It’s not just gaining the information, as if I’m preparing a giant research paper on how to live in China, it’s using the information properly to connect myself to the life around me in a way that brings glory to God.  It’s been serious business.  It relates on a basic level to survival and on a more advanced level to the actual purpose of my life.  Collecting the money, the nuts, the information, sharing the money or nuts or information, using the money or nuts or information overshadows or comes between every other aspect of life.  It colors every transaction or exchange with other people around me.

Living this way creates a physical and mental strain, but, as God designed humans to be amazingly resilient, you adjust.  You adjust to constant adjusting.  You adjust to always learning and trying to change.

Then, one day, you return to America.  Like Scrooge waking up to a world where money grows on trees on every corner, or a squirrel finding that nuts are now piled like winter snowdrifts everywhere, you find all the information about the culture and people that you hoarded so faithfully is unnecessary and irrelevant to your current situation.  It’s an odd feeling.  You should be immediately relaxed and at home in your own culture, and you are, but that somehow feels wrong.  The struggle, the effort of learning to thrive in your new environment is gone, and you feel slightly empty at the loss of such an important part of your life.  You feel like you’re sitting on this giant pile of information, “How to adjust to living in China”, that was a pointless waste of effort.

It’s not that I ever became so Chinese in my thinking that living in America is now unfamiliar.  My Chinese friends would laugh at that.  It would take much longer than I lived in China for that to happen to me, if that’s even possible.  It’s that I adjusted to living as a foreigner in China: I adjusted to constant adjusting.  Now I don’t have to work so hard at life skills, and, well, um, it’s an adjustment.

For me, I try each day to trample down the lies of my heart as I return to my home culture and build up my mind in the truth of God’s Word.  I remind myself of His good and sovereign plan.  My time in China was not wasted.   The change in me and the change in others around me were ordained by His will.  Wherever I am, I am required to adjust and readjust so that my life brings glory to God.  None of the cultures of earth should really feel like home to me, and yet I should strive to reach people in whichever culture I am placed.

Perhaps my view of culture shock and reverse culture shock is a bit simplistic.  Many of my views are.  But now you know, when you see me staring at a plate of spaghetti and the fork in my hand, that I’m simply taking a second to set aside all the work that went into learning to eat noodles with chopsticks.  I’m putting the nut down and realizing that I’ve no need to hoard for now.

I’m taking a minute from FINALLY unpacking my suitcases because I found something very special in one of them.  It’s just a piece of notebook paper with a list on it, but my heart is encouraged so much to read it.  A couple of months ago, I had surgery in China.  Yes, I will blog about that (for all who’ve been asking).  The night before the surgery, I stayed in the hospital.  My dear friend Divena came from her city to stay with me that week.  We decided to keep a list of things we were thankful for during the experience, to keep our hearts focused on His good gifts during all the new and/or scary events.  The day after the surgery was definitely hardest and keeping this list helped us survive.  It seems random but each thing on this list was so precious at the time.

So, this is for you , Divena!

“We are thankful for…

*the 203 bus

*Peter and Jackson (dear brothers who were there through the registration/ testing process)

*the room is cool (it was about 100 outside that day)

*Dr. Guo

*was at the front of the X-ray line and had my EKG in the room

*Guo Ba Rou

*beautiful weather (the next day)

*Crutches so you don’t have to be carried piggyback to the bathroom

*taxis

*Solomon is able to come because of the holiday (a brother who sat with Divena and Jackson throughout the 4 hours before I came out of recovery)

*the fact that our bodies can be cleaned and our hearts already have been

*the peace of God

*skype, computers, and ipods

*God’s Word

*cold Coke

*McFlurry’s

*Divena (that was my contribution to the thankful list)

*Carol put money on my phone

*the sheets are clean

*the roommates are nice, if many relatives

*Karyn and thankful for Karyn’s thankfulness (must have been Divena)

*Zhang Min and Cui Guo Zhen

*doctors and nurses in the operating room.  very professional and yet fun

*lack of privacy wasn’t an issue during surgery

*tiny stitches

*surgery is over

*oxygen tube cancels out the smoke smell

*Kelly

*Karyn’s mom

There’s a longer list I found, too.  A list of the visitors I had that week.  about 6 foreigners and 25 Chinese friends, many of whom came multiple times.  So much to be thankful for which I hope to share in future posts.

to the States, to Rockford, to walking without crutches (albeit slowly), to blogging…  more to follow.

It’s a truth that will always amaze me: people can be so vastly different and yet so fundamentally the same.

I’m spending several days with a Chinese friend and her family in another city over the lunar New Year.  Right now, I’m tired and so very full of food and thinking about returning home on the train tomorrow.  My mind is a bit overwhelmed, and I’m having a hard time processing the sights and sounds and tastes and emotions of the last few days into intelligble words.

However, I keep being struck by memories.  Memories of the occasional holidays that we spent at my grandparents with our other relatives on my mother’s side of the family.  Smelling cigarette smoke and hearing loud talking and eating vast quantities of food.  Playing games with your cousins and watching tv your grandpa.  Those things are all the same here.  Sure, the language is different and the food is different, but older ladies are still spending long conversations discussing why I’m not married yet.

I’m so thankful that I’ve been included in this family event on the other side of the world from where I grew up.  And I keep wishing my grandparents, who were adventurers at heart, could be here to see me… and to taste the food!