For the last four years, my husband and I have been in China at Christmastime. I opened up the trunk that holds our Christmas decorations after an absence of four years, and pulled out the familiar, and the half-forgotten, ornaments for a Canadian Christmas. We've got a turkey and cranberry jelly and all the trimmings that were not available to us back in China.
People ask me, "are you happy to be home?" and the answer is, I miss China and my life there and my friends. A lot. I miss the crazy, bustling streets and the little children in their grandparents' arms and watching all of the changes of a developing economy.
Although Christmas is just another working day in China, we had lots of Christmas joy and wonderful experiences. We forced students to sing the 12 Days of Christmas, Ross was Santa Claus, and we ate dumplings in an unheated school cafeteria instead of Christmas dinner and we were perfectly happy.
Of course we knew we were living in a dictatorship. But compared to the bad old days of Mao and the Cultural Revolution, China had made so much progress in terms of individual liberty. We hoped that it would continue to do so, since the benefits were apparent and obvious. But during my last year in China, I noticed a change in the atmosphere...
People ask me, "are you happy to be home?" and the answer is, I miss China and my life there and my friends. A lot. I miss the crazy, bustling streets and the little children in their grandparents' arms and watching all of the changes of a developing economy.
Although Christmas is just another working day in China, we had lots of Christmas joy and wonderful experiences. We forced students to sing the 12 Days of Christmas, Ross was Santa Claus, and we ate dumplings in an unheated school cafeteria instead of Christmas dinner and we were perfectly happy.
Of course we knew we were living in a dictatorship. But compared to the bad old days of Mao and the Cultural Revolution, China had made so much progress in terms of individual liberty. We hoped that it would continue to do so, since the benefits were apparent and obvious. But during my last year in China, I noticed a change in the atmosphere...
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