Let’s get to know each other

by Cindy
I had a conversation with my girlfriend about the hypothetical situation of whether we should remarry if our husbands died. I know my married girlfriends have had this conversation too, don’t deny it people. Her response was how hard it would be to have to get to know another person as intimately all over again.

Truly one of the greatest gifts in relationships is to be understood by another person. And trusting you will be accepted and loved in spite of the intimate knowledge. However, the process from acquaintance to intimacy takes time. It takes time to tell stories, to react to circumstances in life, to laugh and cry together, to argue and disagree, and then to make up. These experiences build layers of trust and loyalty and compose the patches of material that make up friendship. Through time we weave our lives together and enter together into the depth of relationship that allow us to be known by one another. And we are created to long for that depth. To be deeply known.

The trouble is, then we move. We pick up and move to another town. Or in my case, across the freakin’ ocean. I grew up in a small school where my friends were like my brothers and sisters. We were that small and that close. At graduation we scattered literally all over the world. Our new communities didn’t know our collective history and we had to start over from scratch with the storytelling and the laughing and crying and all that relationship building stuff. Then we’d move again. And start all over again. It’s no wonder people who are forced to move around a lot, like military families, have intimacy issues. It’s simply too exhausting.

Each time we enter a new community, that new place shapes us, molding us into someone different. When I left Wheaton, I was starting to question some of the conservative elements of my beliefs. Fuller helped introduce a broader spectrum of theology and how to incorporate doubt and criticism into a vibrant faith. In a sense, there was a Morrison Cindy, a Wheaton Cindy, a Fuller Cindy, a China Cindy, and a back-to-Taiwan Cindy. As time went on, the world changed and so did I. In the moving river of life, people who stepped in along the way journeyed with me downstream without the knowledge of who I was before I became who I am. Like a diamond, we can only reflect light off of one surface at a time even though we are made out of many facets.

The potential for misunderstanding is alarming. In our limited perspective, it’s too easy to make judgments regarding a person’s comments without a fuller understanding of their background. Wheaton Cindy would be appalled at some of the theological slants of back-to-Taiwan Cindy, and Chinese Cindy cannot hardly stand American Cindy most of the time. The complexities of our biological, cultural, mental, and spiritual identities is what fuels the psycho-therapy economy. And yet there exists inside of me the desire to be wholly known. The impossibility of somebody understanding the nuances of every past experience, every hat I wear, every idea and action and word I exhibit, doesn’t stop me from trying.

So I tell stories. I share my reaction when stuff happens. I laugh and cry. I argue and disagree. And I make up. Then I listen, not only to stories but to the stories behind the stories. I try not to jump to conclusions about people because I don’t know where they’ve been upstream. I look for the other faces of the diamond that make up each person I encounter because seeing only one side is not satisfying. I lean deep into the relationships around me to know and be known. It’s what I was created for.

I’m Cindy. It’s nice to meet you. Let’s get to know each other, shall we?

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

That’s an image of the Facebook friend connections between cities. The more connections, the brighter and whiter the lines. (See an explanation of how they made it is here.) You’ll notice a few conspicuously dark areas: Brazil and Russia have more popular local social network competitors; Africa has less internet users. And then there’s China.

Christmas is the hardest time of the year to be on the other side of the world from family. Living in a FB black hole would only make it that much worse. We have a toddler, my one sister is pregnant and the other just got engaged, in addition to all the usual family fun that happens during Christmas. That’s a lot of family-ness to miss out on. Thankfully, there are ways to access Facebook (and everything else) in spite of China’s ‘harmonious’ internet. These last two weeks we’ve been burning a hole in the internets with all sharing family photos and videos back and forth. Skype, of course, is getting a good workout, too.

I have issues with FB, and if I could start again with it I would do things differently. After all, they are out to get you (they harvest and calculate your information and behaviour patterns to make you easier to manipulate for advertisers and, one day, governments. I only first started using it to stalk my sister’s then-boyfriend). But, I am thankful — very thankful — that it’s so easy to communicate between continents. We almost effortlessly and instantly share pictures, videos, and make video calls. It’s not as good as being together, of course, but we’re definitely grateful!

Merry Christmas 2010!

P.S. — And Merry Christmas from China, too:

P.P.S. — And Merry Christmas from my rock star soon-to-be-brother-in-law:

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Related Stuff:

• Foreign baby in China essentials: FACEBOOK SUBSTITUTE (or VPN) & SKYPE
  
• Blog Series: Giving Birth in Chengdu

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Problem: you have someone’s grandbaby, niece, nephew and/or great-grandbaby, and you live on the other side of the globe. Aside from mom and dad, all the people who love him or her the most are far, far away. This really, really sucks!

We were in Canada for the first four months of Lilia’s life (she spent her first month outside her mommy in the NICU). During that time our Facebook accounts were filled with baby photos and videos as well as daily comments from family and friends all around the globe. And that was when we were still living with family in our own country; we hadn’t even left yet.

In China, Facebook is was the ultimate tool for sharing baby photos and videos with far away family members (and, thanks to the privacy options, not the entire sleaze-saturated, creep-infested, pervert-enabling internet). Everyone from my grandparents to their great-grandkids are on Facebook, and it just kills to not get to share our daughter with them. We also miss the weekly and often daily FB interaction revolving around our nieces and nephews and whatever other family adventures are going on (most recently: the 2010 Olympic Games in our hometown!). Obviously it’s not as good as being within driving distance of your relatives, but FB was a big help and it’s sorely missed.

Some Options

So, 怎么办？ Here’s the three options we’ve come across for making the physical distance from family members a little less painful. If you have other ideas, please let us know in the comments!

1) Get a VPN
We haven’t bothered to used a paid service to unrestrict our internet in China. When it comes to the internet less can be more, I’m really cheap, and I assume those VPN services will be blocked eventually anyway. But for $60 bucks a year (wow, I really am cheap…) you can get great services like the one we just won for free! The good folks at ChengduLiving.com had a free giveaway and just yesterday we won six months of free VPN service! We tried it this morning and it’s working great; click here to see the details — you can get a discount code from ChengduLiving.com. (Thanks tons, guys!) Our original strategy didn’t involve VPNs, so I don’t know if we’ll keep using it or not once our free six months are up.

2) Get/Make a Facebook substitute
I’m really cheap, Facebook was already sucking up too much of my time, and I wanted a baby-photo-sharing backup that would work even if/when China blocked every proxy and VPN in the world. So we set up a private, password-protected, family-only WordPress blog. Since we already pay for our own domain name and hosting, this didn’t cost us anything extra. It’s not as slick as Facebook, of course, but we can still share photo galleries and upload video clips that our family can download, and everyone can leave comments and share their own stories and photos. It’s also nice to have some family-members-only space on the internet. Our families can see photos and video the same day we take them.

There’s no guarantee that our domain name/hosting server won’t go the way of Facebook, YouTube, and a growing list of proxies and VPNs; personal sites get blocked, too. But we try to play nice by staying away from topics and words that the gov. deems sensitive. Plus sites like ours aren’t as high priority for censors or as high profile as proxies anyway.

3) Use Skype
You don’t need a top-of-the-line computer or video camera (we have older stuff) to pull off great Skype video calls. And it’s free! And if your grandparents are too computer-illiterate to handle Skype, you can just Skype their phones for pennies a minute at the most ($0.02/minute to Canada and the USA). When international video calls or phone calls are this easy, it’d be tragic not to take advantage of the opportunity.

Any other ideas? How do you stay connected with family and friends back home?

Related:

• A Foreign Baby in Tianjin Pt. 1 – is this our future?

Other foreign baby in China essentials:

• Foreign baby in China essentials: IMPORTED BABY FORMULA
• Foreign baby in China essentials: FRIENDLY STRANGER FINGER SHIELD
• Foreign baby in China essentials: AIR PURIFIER

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Anyway, running the 10K (that’s 6.2 miles for you non-metric users) went really well. I’ve definitely gained a lot in endurance and stamina throughout this training process, even if my overall pace for the 10K is a bit slower than for the 5k I did in August. I’ve also been quite excited to realize how well having a specific goal and training plan really helps me stay motivated on a day to day basis. Other than a few days that I was out with a cold back in October…I really didn’t miss any runs! But the biggest surprise of all for me is that somewhere between the end of the 5k and the completion of the 10k, running actually became very enjoyable for me…and something that I would look forward to!!! My time for the 10K was 55 minutes 25 seconds…for a pace of 8 minutes 56 seconds per mile. I’m very satisfied with my time, especially since I had set a goal of 55 minutes or so for the race. Overall, I do believe that would be slower if I were running outdoors…the treadmill really helps me to push it and keep up the pace more than I might if I were pacing myself on the ground outside.

My friend Nicole, who also ran the 5k with me in August, kept going with the goal for the 10k and completed it on Saturday the 15th. She finished with a great time of 1 hr 7 minutes and 8 seconds. I’m totally impressed, as the area she runs has lots of hills and gradual inclines! Best of all, her wonderful husband and daughter cheered her on…they stopped at a few of the places they knew she would run by and cheered for her, and then when she arrived home they had stretched a “finish ribbon” for her to break through. I just thought it was so awesome to see the ways that they encouraged her throughout the process.:D I can’t wait to visit her when we are back in North America for the spring and go for a jog together…I can just imagine that the smell of the fresh air and pine tress will make the run even better!

Now…there were a few others who had planned to participate…but I’m not sure if there were any others that completed the 10K over the course of that weekend. If you did, just add your time and a bit about your run to the comments!!!

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

So here’s the info:

Plan to walk, speed-walk, walk-run, run-walk, or run 10K anytime between Friday, November 14th and Sunday, November 16th. November 16th is the day of Ruth’s marathon, so I thought we could all join in on the same weekend! Feel free to do this wherever you usually run…outside in the forest for those of you that have that option, or indoors on the treadmill (like me) for those of you who fear the pollution.:D NO registration fee required…;)

If you’re interested in a training plan, check out these links:

Sporting Life Canada (has plans for walking, walk-running, run-walking, and running all for the 10K distance!)

About.com Running (Beginner Plan)

About.com Running (Advanced Beginner Plan) – This is the plan that I’m following, albeit slightly modified to allow me to have weekends completely off.

Runner’s World 10K plan

Hal Higdon’s 10K Training Plan

And now…MOST importantly…our race needs a NAME!!! I’ve had little success coming up with one on my own, so please help me brainstorm below in the comments section!

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve never been a runner…I took it up a few years back, just to see if I could “learn how” to run or at least learn how to not HATE running. I got up to distances of about 2 miles…though not loving it, I at least learned to tolerate it (and love the feeling AFTER the run). Then we graduated, moved away from the school’s gym that we always used, and then came to Asia…which meant that when we joined the gym in February, it had been at least 2.5 years since I had run at all. It was much easier to pick back up than I thought it would be…so I’d already been running several times a week when I decided to challenge myself to this treadmill 5k.

I was inspired by my friend Ruth…a mom of three kids who will hit 40 this year, and is in the middle of training for her first marathon (26 miles). She already ran a half marathon on July 4th this year. As I started to think about my running, it seemed like if she could run for that long, I surely could try to do a 5k!!! Then I decided to try a 5k, with the goal of doing a 10K eventually (now scheduled for November). So the training began. And as I trained, I told Ruth about it and she decided she would run it with me but in Texas.

And then I told my friend Nicole about it…and she decided she would also run it with me, but in Washington. And thus, our Cross-World 5k Run was born!!! It was so encouraging to know that I had friends in other places training and planning to run with me. We planned to try and run it at the exact same time…but that’s kind of difficult to coordinate due to both time differences and to the general unpredictability of life, especially for Ruth and Nicole, who are both mothers. As proof of this unpredictability, one of Ruth’s kids came down with a stomach bug in the week of the “race”…and then passed it on to Ruth. In the end, we all ended up running it in the same 24-hour period, which counts as “at the same time” in my book.:D

Even though we all participated in this “race” the goal was not to compete against each other, but to race against ourselves…to challenge ourselves to run harder, faster, better…and to enjoy it! Nicole and Ruth really got into the spirit of it and made “race numbers” for themselves. While running, we all had our challenges to face…Nicole raced while dodging middle-school kids who were playing football ON the track. Ruth, still in recovery from the stomach flu, had little energy with which to race. I, being a little nervous and excited about my first “race”, overestimated my beginning pace and went a little too fast…which meant that I hit a wall at about 2.5 miles and felt like I was going to throw up and pass out if I didn’t slow down a bit. But we all made it…and I can honestly say that I really enjoyed it for the first 2.5 miles. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that way before about running…and definitely not for that long.

I reveled in the feeling of how natural it felt to run, and felt my heart resonate to the the lyrics of “Dare You to Move” by Switchfoot. “I dare you to move…like today never happened before.” And I felt bold and proud…that I had dared myself to move and to take on this challenge…and that today, on this new day that had never happened before, I was both living out that dare and enjoying the results of it.

Now…none of of us are in the league of the Olympic 5k ladies, but then again…almost nobody is in their league. Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia ran the 5k in 15:41.40 in Beijing this year, which is pretty darned impressive. That’s a 5 minute 3 second mile pace!!! But we all did really well….Nicole finished in 27:12, Ruth in 30:28, and I finished in 25 minutes even. I am so proud of us all, for taking up the challenge and for finishing it (even with the flu and football players on the running track!!!), and am especially thankful that I have the kind of friends who are willing to both encourage me in this kind of challenge and participate in it themselves!

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.