I've been slowly returning to "normal" life. The bug that I brought back with me is slowly leaving my body and I've been catching up on sleep. I returned to work last week and, with that, will soon be back to our familiar routine. This week of recovering from jet lag/nasty bug while just relaxing with my family has been heavenly. It has also been a good week of reflection.
One aspect of the trip that made me a bit uncomfortable was the feeling of privilege. Before the trip, a good friend suggested the ladies leave our diamond engagement rings at home. I've never left this ring home before and certainly felt comfortable wearing it in China. It never occurred to me take it off and leave it at home.
In hindsight, I'm glad I left it home.
My fairly modest engagement ring would have been another uncomfortable reminder of the privileged life we lead compared to those we were serving in China.
I've studied white privilege in the past and don't have any answers, other than we all need to have an awareness that it existed. I realize life for my white son will be a bit easier than life for my Asian daughter, just simply because of preconceived notions Americans still hold about race. Confronting it and educating about it are tools to help eradicate it in the future. But it is still alive and well today.
This played out for me in the food we ate while at the welfare house. We were warned that the food was rough. We were told from previous groups that they ate the same food feed to the workers. We were prepared to have the same meal over and over.
That wasn't the case. The food was AMAZING. The city we were in was on the coast of the China Sea and seafood was fresh daily. Truly some of the best food I've eaten in my life.
(Excuse me while I go on a food tangent....)
Noodles with squid and shrimp. (Yes, I ate squid and LOVED it!)
This was the welfare house "restaurant" we ate in for every lunch and dinner. It was a far cry from a restaurant we were familiar with but we ate well. There were 4 tables set up and we'd be the only ones eating in this air conditioned room.
Here is the spread from just one meal.
The assistant director of the welfare house was always with us but we were often joined by the director of the welfare house and the director of the children's facility within the welfare house.
This is the director of the children's facility who was very into Chinese medicine. One evening, she arranged for her Chinese medicine mentor to visit us in our hotel. This gentlemen had studied mechanical engineering and had a PhD from Carnegie Mellon. He gave us Chinese medicine gifts, showed us some relaxation techniques and provided me with a small bit of Chinese medicine to treat a patch of psoriasis that I've had all my life.
Did I mention the seafood? Yes, you had to rip off the head with the beady eyes looking at you and then remove the shell....but you were rewarded with the most scrumptious shrimp meat!
And these....THESE!!! These were some type of green tea biscuit with purple sweet potato inside. I would LOVE to be able to replicate thee at home. I've had serious cravings for these since being home. I've texted pictures to Chinese friends in the area to see if they have any idea where I could find them in St. Louis. No luck. :(
So...you might be wondering where I'm going with this post. I started talking about privilege and then moved to food. Let's get back on track....
Well, because we'd been told that groups ate what the staff ate, I originally assumed that was the case with our group.
I mentioned to Candy (my feeding room chaperone) how good the food was. She told me she didn't think we were eating the same food.
We weren't.
I started to notice the food plates of the staff. It consisted of a metal plate, a heap of rice, some cooked vegetable and usually a full fish (head, tail, scales and all).
While we ate in the air conditioned "restaurant" the staff ate in this more industrialized canteen. No one seemed unhappy and we heard lots of laughter from the folks eating their lunch together.
But it still left me feeling uncomfortable that we were eating such amazing meals, prepared for by their chef, while they ate food we'd find difficult to eat every day of our trip. (Part of our trip expenses pay for meals so I do hope they made some money off the delicious meals they fed us and were able to put that extra money to good use.)
What do we do with this?!? We owe it to others to do SOMETHING. That something may look very different from me to you. My heart is clearly in China but yours might be somewhere else. Doesn't matter....make a difference. Use your privilege to make a difference. Maybe travelling to a foreign country isn't your cup of tea (teehee...food reference!) but maybe there is something local you can do to help those in need. Maybe your heart is overseas but you don't think you could make that type of trip. Then support someone else is who is going to the area of the world that interests you.
As much as we complain about our lack of money, the reality is that WE (middle class Americans) are wealthier than the majority of the world's population. So, let's DO SOMETHING to change the world for the better.
And now a shameless plug....if this blog has piqued your interest at all, I invite you to check out the future ACT teams at http://www.awaa.org/ACT/trips.aspx. It was truly a life changing experience. I'll be going back in June 2015 and we're recruiting team members. (Seriously, the fundraising was the scariest part but in hindsight, that was one of the easiest things about this entire trip.)
