Four Months

Fall arrived a few weeks ago, announcing itself with a brisk wind and chilly mornings. As if the weather here were aware of the cliché, fall literally blew in one day.

I have been in China for a little under four months now.

When I look back the day I spent traveling here, it seems more like four years than four months, however, for the most part, it has flown by. My weeks seem to slip by faster than I ever imagined they could. My work schedule is heaviest on Saturday and Sunday so Sunday nights have a way of turning into Saturday mornings like the weekdays were a curious afterthought.

Months on the other hand, seem to roll by right on time.

I’ve settled in faster than I might expect. I guess I never thought of China becoming mundane, but there it is, a feeling of comfort that comes around because most parts of your new life are expected, or at least not constantly new and surprising. I have developed a level of normalcy, something which seems pretty outlandish and bizarre when I consider it from my viewpoints in America. I have enough Chinese under my belt to handle most daily needs like buying food, bank transactions, taking taxis, and brief conversations about who I am and where I’m from. For anything beyond that, I have a few Chinese friends that can help me out. I’d be foolish to say I’ve experienced all I have to experience here, I experience new things every day, but I’m no longer habitually on the lookout for the new and novel everywhere I look.

For the most part, my growing comfort with China is welcome, but it can come at a price, as it is somewhat frustrating to grow accustomed to something you are trying to critically observe. New experiences gradually diminish, and with them, a lot of easy inspiration for photography, writing, or whatever else you need it for. I rarely notice the masked street sweepers anymore where they used to stand out as clearly as scarecrows. The oppressive and bland industrialized architecture that seems to pervade throughout the country once imposed on me, now it’s no more than a backdrop. I try to retain courteous western habits, but Dalian’s residents’ lack thereof is no longer much of a talking point. Of course, the upshot is that observations are bound to carry more insight and meaning if you don’t become too complacent with life to stop having them. Learning to seek new experiences is a necessity that does not openly announce itself and can be hard to find motivation for when you’ve developed some level of comfort.

To stave of this complacency, I’ve taken to riding random busses to the last stop. If the bus doesn’t go as far as another bus does, I keep going. I’ve found this to be instantly gratifying as I will never have cause to go to most of the places I’ve been through my bus adventures. My first escapade revealed a vast construction project responsible for expanding the peninsula’s eastern edge at least a kilometer out to sea, a beautiful seaside highway, and my first taste of oysters. My second time out yielded a textbook normal fault and a forest maze of giant spider webs inhabited by the most terrifyingly large and yellow arachnids I have ever seen. The third time, I stumbled upon a vividly graphic and fresh car accident, forests of cruelly uniform high-rises under construction, and expansive fields of sunflowers…lots of them. I rue the day that I run out of busses.

Four months have flown by with no sigh of a relenting pace. I’d be foolish to say I’ve experienced all I have to experience here, I experience new things every day, but I’m no longer perpetually wide eyed.

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