It Takes a Global Village to Raise a Child

I'm noticing a common trend in China: just when I start to feel like I'm adapted to living in Beijing, everything changes.

Global Village

Global Village

After two weeks of living in the Zhongguan Global Village apartment complex, I gathered up my things and moved into my home stay. This was nerve-wracking--what would my host family be like? What would their home be like? And, most importantly, would we get along? I prayed that I wasn't going to be one of the horror stories we had heard about, which involved terrible living conditions, excessive invasions of privacy, and, in one case, a host parent going through the trash of a student. I knew one thing: however unstable this experience would be, I wasn't going to be one of the students moving back to Global Village.

I met my host mom on a sunny sunday outside of the Global Village. She's a friendly, middle-aged woman who works in accounting at the university. She doesn't own a car, so we took a cab to her apartment just outside the world-famous West Gate of Beida--I feel like I'm walking into Mulan every time I go through it.

My Host Parents' Room/Living Room/Dining Room

Actually not as bad as it looks!

The apartment is tiny! It is essentially three rooms, with the master bedroom/living room to the left, the hallway-balcony-gone-kitchen in the middle, and my room to the right. I was a little worried about the bathroom because the shower is quite literally a hose above the sink, which drains into a smelly hole in the ground, but so far it's been okay! Despite it's size, it is a very charming place to live. I often feel a bit more cheerful when the sun streams across the lightly-colored wood.

My room! 

I like my room a lot. It's fairly spacious, and the bed is very comfortable--a welcome change from the very solid bed at Global Village. The room belongs to my host mom's daughter, who is a college student in Seattle. In many ways  I feel like I'm living her life--her room is adorned with pink curtains and stuffed animals that surround me as I work, and there's a poster of Alan Iverson above the bed. A framed butterfly hangs on the wall, and my keys are anchored with a hello kitty figurine.





Ironically, one of the first things I noticed was a leprechaun pen. Now, owning about five of them, I knew immediately from where this pen had come--which was from my very own University of Notre Dame. I was astounded, but when I asked my host mom, she told me one of her previous students, Mariel, had lived there, along with several other ND students throughout recent years. I couldn't believe it! Mariel and I had been in the same Chinese class way back when, and last year, when she was abroad, she would send back emails detailing her adventures, and I specifically remember reading the email in which she raved over her host family and wishing I could have one as good. It's strange, but that little pen and "play like a champion today" magnet made me feel like being hugged--as if I had a little slice of ND here comforting me in China. It lessened the stress of moving into a new place a lot, and I'm grateful to the domers who lived here before me.



My mom and I get along really well--we often spend hours talking about everything and anything. She speaks no English, so she often has to help me as I stutter along in Chinese. Sometimes, though, I wonder why she hosts students. Is it because she genuinely likes welcoming foreigners into her home? Is it because of the money she gets for hosting us? Or is it because she's lonely?


We eat lunch together twice a week. She cooks the most amazing food I've had in China--I honestly don't know how she does it. From noodles, to chicken, to tomato-egg omlettes, she can do it all in a matter of minutes.


For the first week, I assumed she was a divorcee or single mom. I didn't want to ask.  That is, until I came home one night to see (and smell) her husband, smoking and watching television on the couch. I smiled as I met him, but passive aggressive rage was building in my mind--if there is one thing that is constantly offensive to other people, it's smoking. And he smokes. A lot. It's really kind of thrown a wrench into this situation--just as I was used to my host mom, my smokey-the-bear host dad comes along and stinks up the place. It's not that I hate people who smoke, but the smell is just unbearable. I need to keep my door shut when he's around, because as soon as the smell hits I can feel my sinuses swelling and congesting. Sometimes I open the window, but with the life-threatening pollution, it's not much of an improvement.


While my host mom and I have bonded over many conversations, my host dad is quiet, doesn't really make eye contact, and spends the majority of his time laying in bed and looking rather sickly. He's some sort of engineer, and will be gone for long stretches of time and around for others. I don't get it. I can feel myself withdrawing a bit to this new presence in the home, slowly inching back out as I talk with him more and more. I think he's genuinely friendly, but I just haven't had that moment of bonding with him yet.


Sometimes, I think of the girl who's life I now live, and wonder if she hates me for sleeping in her bed, using her keys, putting my clothes in her drawers, and sitting at her desk. I know if someone was at this moment putting his grimy hands all over my room, I'd hate him too. I wondered why her parents would do that to her--but Mary, a year-long student who had lived here previously--said something that changed this perception: "They do everything for their daughter. Every penny goes to her education and her well-being."



At that moment the world turned upside down. Everything these parents do, they do with their daughter in mind. The tiny apartment, the patchwork fixtures, the lack of a washing machine and car--all of it is to save money so she can study at an American university, gain experience, and live a good life. While they don't own a computer, their daughter owns a Macbook Pro and an IPhone 4S. My heart was touched by this--the amount of sacrifice they have endured is tremendous. I knew this was also my purpose--I was a gear in the motor of this plan--but I didn't feel as though that was a bad thing. My host mom has never made me feel like a means of gaining money--she's been there every night to open the door, to lock it after I leave, to turn the hot water on so I can take a shower, and even to tip-toe into my room now and then to present me with gross little candies that I eat when I run out of strawberries. Whenever I'm home she cooks for me, even though she is only required to twice a week. When I cut my finger on a shard of glass this morning, I found myself wishing she was home so I could ask her if she thought I should get stitches. Later that night when I finally did ask her, she told me not to wash it because it would take longer to heal. I smiled, telling her I wouldn't, even though her suggestion made absolutely no sense. But even something like that makes me grateful I have her around. I know we'll have our challenges as a family this semester, but I think this new global village is a good one.