Things Missed

N.B. I will try on weekends to put out an extended essay to give a little more in depth sense of what is going on over here.This is my first, and hopefully not the last, effort in this direction.

What I find myself reflecting on these days are different things that I miss, and the way that I miss them. If you are traveling somewhere for a brief period of time–anywhere from a few days to a few months–the excitement of travel is usually enough to prevent you from missing things–or from missing them for very long. And if you have settled permanently somewhere, although you might miss certain things from your old location, your energy is usually sufficiently invested in the new locale that you don’t really have time to miss things. Besides, if you have moved from Ft. Lauderdale to Seattle, you may miss the sunshine, but unless you want to go crazy you put it out of your thoughts and focus on the benefits of your current location: the mountains, the ocean, and a Starbucks on every block. But it is this intermediate situation–somewhere between a temporary break from your current life to a completely new transition–that I currently find myself in. And in this condition, it is easy or natural to miss things because there is an expectation of getting them back is present the way it is not when you move somewhere new. And, unlike the case of short term travel, the excitement that often overrides our longing for certain comforts of home has worn off now that I have been abroad for over three months

But missing things is not so simple, and there are all sorts of ways to miss things, I am finding out. There are of course the obvious things, things that I miss because I am able to find no substitute for them over here. The most obvious thing that falls into this category are friends and family. There is no need to elaborate on this one, except to say that I knew coming in that I would miss them. Not that it makes in any easier to know something is going to happen.

There are other things that fall into this irreplaceable category which I probably should have seen that I would not be able to replace them but quite simply did not think of it, unlike the case of family and friends. Baths, for example. I mean, I knew in all likelihood I would be unable to take a bath for two years but just kept that thought from my memory even through my two and a half months of training when the bathroom consisted of a hole for a squat toilet and a shower head. It wasn’t until I got to my site where I would be for two and a half years that the sad realization hit me that I will simply be unable to take a bath for the duration of this time. Now, many people and perhaps most men would not see this as a great loss. But I can think of few things more relaxing than to slip into a hot bath at the end of a long, hard day, especially during the cold, cruel Utah winter. And though the winters here promise to be equally cruel if not as cold, I now confront the reality that there will be not tub of steaming water to take the edge of the chill or to relax aching muscles. Well, let’s not dwell on it.

Not having a car and not being able to drive. Again, it should have been pretty obvious that I would neither have a car nor be able to drive for the next two years. But what that meant never truly crossed my mind, perhaps because I had spent the year previous to leaving without a car, which in retrospect is probably a good thing. Americans love their cars and the freedom just to take off and drive and I’m no different in that way. It is a great safety valve. But for the next two years I won’t be going anywhere that public transportation won’t take me.

Friends and family, baths, and cars–all things I either did or should have seen that I was going to miss. But the reverse is actually true to some extent. There are some things that I truly thought I would miss that I find myself missing not at all. Like many people, I have a few favorite television shows, some of them on PBS, but some of them not on PBS. And they weren’t many but I did watch them regularly and they provided a nice diversion. But there is one English language channel over here and they have a combination of news and discussion. So, no Seinfeld reruns, no Curb Your Enthusiasm, no CI, no Rescue Me, no Monday Night Football. No problem. I only wish I could give up the news as easily but I find myself still addicted to checking news web sites so that the world is still with me regardless of how far I have tried to get away.

I am not sure whether I thought I would be able to get newspapers or magazines over here. In the excitement of getting ready to leave and then in the exhaustion of training I probably did not think about such mundane things. But now that things have settled down into a routine of sorts, the pleasures of thumbing through a newspaper or one of my favorite magazine is a little pleasure that I truly miss. Herman Hesse wrote one of my favorite essays on such little pleasures and mentioned how for most of our days it is these little things that are so important and that we often don’t appreciate them. Little joys he called them. And true, I can get many things on line but it is somehow not the same. In fact I have not even subscribed to the electronic versions of my two favorite magazines–The New Republic and The New York Times Review–because for me part of the joy was just sitting down somewhere and thumbing through the pages. The tactile element is important in a way I can’t explain and it’s why electronic books will never replace the real thing. There is something about the private space you can create with yourself and a book that up to this point the computer has been unable to replicate. And so especially on Sunday morning, when a big, fat newspaper is a sort of ritual I like many Americans are accustomed to, I miss the newspaper. And while we are on the topic, another little lost joy worth commenting on is the inability to go into a Barnes and Nobel bookstore and browse through books and drink coffee. I could easily spend a night doing this, but won’t be for a while. The coffee shop/bookstore combination has not caught on over here, and even if it does, there will be at most a shelf or two of English language books.

But there is another class of things besides those that I absolutely cannot find over here–besides the friends and family, the clean air, baths and newspapers–that I miss. These are things that I cannot say I can’t find them over here. But I can’t find exactly those things over here and must settle for some substitute. And even though many people would be hard pressed in some cases to see much of a difference between the thing I miss and the substitute, the fact is I can, and that’s what counts. For me, one of the major things that falls into this category is Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice. Now, to be sure, the situation with regard to orange juice could be worse. For a while, it seemed I would be unable to find anything that could claim to be one hundred percent orange juice. Most of the stores only carry juice heavily mixed with sugar water. Indeed, when I was living with my Chinese family, I used to take two busses to get to a store where I could buy little bottles of Dole one hundred percent orange juice from concentrate which I would then stick under my bed. Each morning I would gulp down one warm bottle every morning. So things have certainly improved since then. Now the distinction between Tropicana Pure Premium and Orange Juice made from concentrate is perhaps not quite the line between caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee–but it is darn close. And granted, for most people, the distinction between the two types of orange juices may have no more meaning for them than does the distinction between the two major branches of Islam. But students of religion and of orange juice know the difference, and that is what matters.

The list of foods that could fit in here would probably be endless, or at least difficult to list. Ice cream might be first on the list. There is the fact that nothing tastes like ice cream over here for a reason I can’t determine, certainly not the numerous ice cream bars that look nothing like the ice cream bars we are used to, and there aren’t any containers in stores and even if there were I would not be able to get them home in time before they melt. So there are substitutions for the real things, but they are pale substitutions at best. A few of the American style restaurants sell shakes and such, but even these are not quite on, and neither are they cheap. Salads should be mentioned. Not because they fit in this list–in fact, they should probably listed above in things for which no substitute can be found–but because they should be listed somewhere. You really want to stay away from raw vegetables. The best bet would be to clean them at home, but that is such an elaborate process but none but the most salad fanatic would engage in it, and I am not a salad fanatic. Still, I would like one every now and then, but will have to settle for, well, for not having one for two years. I am no sure when I get back if my body will be able to digest raw vegetables.

Another thing for which I have had to accept a pale substitution of the original is exercise. My running for the foreseeable future is confined to a quarter mile running track. Gone are the many running routes of old, not a few of which wound up into the mountains and afforded a type of solitude truly unimaginable here. Now the runs must be limited to as many laps as I can stand around a quarter mile track becaus I am surrounded by concrete and the track is the only reasonable place to run.

That is probably enough of a litany on things missed. I do not want to end on a sour not. For all of these things except family and friends there have been things that have more than compensated for the loss or the almost as good as loss. If I can’t go to Barnes and Noble, there are the numerous DVD stalls that have truly given my movie viewing a new life and perspective. And for all the foods lost or nearly lost, there are so many new dishes to take their place. There is ma pou do fu, baozi, jaozi, kung pa ji ding, the milk teas and the almost endless variety of soups. If one form of exercise is curtailed, there are other things to take its place. Tai Chi, for example. And friends and family are irreplaceable, but there are so many new people, new students, and so many places to visit in China. As Thoreau said and as we don't often remember, you never gain but that you lose something.