The Guy with Jew-dar

“Are you Jewish?”

This is a fairly straightforward question that by all accounts ought to be answerable with one word – a simple yes or no will suffice – and yet whenever anyone asks me this question, I struggle to give them just one word. It doesn’t quite feel right to say “yes” but it doesn’t feel right to say “no” either, so the closest I can come is “kindasorta” (which is still one word, right?).

I wasn’t really expecting myself to be grappling with this question in a tiny coffee shop in the old square of the rural town of Shaxi, in Yunnan Province, China, but then again I wasn’t really expecting the Israeli circus to come to town either.

To be more precise, three acrobat/juggler/circus performers from Israel showed up in Shaxi one day, determined to put on a show for local school children on the opera stage of the old square, and two days later we had our show. That very evening, one of the trio found me in the Old Tree Café and opened the conversation with the aforementioned question.

His name was Guy, and by day he was a juggler. By night he was a chatterbox with strong Jew-dar (self-proclaimed). Upon discovering that the answer to his question was not “no,” he proceeded to share with me what seemed to be the complete history of his relations in the United States and his own experiences there. Though admittedly I found my mind wandering once or twice, Guy’s ramblings were really quite endearing in a single-serving-friend kind of way. Besides, we discovered that we both have ties to the Jewish community in Albuquerque, which was enough to be friends.

Time passed, we shared our stories, and then it was the hour for me to depart and follow some of my students out to the riverside just beyond the edge of the old town to see if we could catch some shooting stars. As Guy and I said our farewells, he gave me a big bear hug (he called it a Jew-hug), and I gratefully accepted what I realized was the first hug I’d had in over a month.

You gotta have faith

Two strangers in a café, sitting on opposite sides of a coffee table. One Chinese, one American. The American is reading a Jane Austen novel while she quietly warms herself up with a bowl of soup, some croquettes, and a hot chocolate. The Chinese woman idly thumbs through raggedy fashion magazines from the café’s bookshelf and sips a mug of tea.

This was the opening scene for a surprising evening in the quaint-if-overly-touristy Lijiang, China. My traveling companion was uninterested in forging out into the cold night for food, so I found myself alone on a couch in a small and friendly bistro that had already proven itself worthy of my hunger the day before. Much to my surprise, I was soon joined by a lone Chinese woman, about my age, who asked if she could sit on the couch opposite me.

Her name was Jin Jin, which I'd been told is the word for “faith” in Chinese, although it turns out that her name had different tones, different characters, and therefore an altogether different meaning. Jin Jin was also traveling with someone – her sister – who didn’t want to brave the cold, and so like me she was drawn into the café for some sustenance. After exchanging a few spurts of conversation over the course of half an hour, Jin Jin asked me if I like live music. I couldn’t deny that I did, and so she invited me to go to a bar with her where there was a local band playing. Despite being completely wiped out after a long day, I felt like this was an opportunity not to be missed. My feeling turned out to be right.

Jin Jin led me through the twisting alleys of old town Lijiang, a place that rivals the best of mazes, until we finally reached our destination. The bar was nondescript from the outside, but once inside I realized I’d been led to somewhere truly unique. The place boasted the traditional architectural style of the Naxi, the dominant indigenous group of the area, which meant that when we settled into a couch near the stage I found myself looking up at a cloudy sky from an open courtyard. Rather inexplicably, I also found myself staring at a bicycle that had been mounted to the giant pole that reached up for the sky from the courtyard’s center. There was a pit fire, and the stools, chairs, and couches surrounding it were littered with a cast of characters that could only be described as counter-culture. The stage, set off to the side and little more than a raised platform big enough for three musicians and their instruments, soon came alive with the youthful band playing original songs and fronted by a golden voice who Jin Jin clearly had a crush on.

There’s something magical about a scene like this – crisp, cold night air, a bonfire, interesting characters speaking a language I don’t know, and a live band with obvious talent that is well-loved by the crowd. It has a kind of quiet energy that can’t be replicated in large venues or with generic cover bands, a pulse that crackles and sparks like the fire that warms the onlookers. This was one of those moments when I was reminded of the power of good music to transcend language barriers and communicate feeling.

Jin Jin, three sheets to the wind after half a beer, confessed to me that she had come here every night during her vacation in Lijiang to hear this band play, and asked me to teach her how to say “the music is intoxicating” in English (of course, this was not the only thing intoxicating her). Her enthusiasm and uninhibited love for this music and this place was not only engaging, it was contagious. I too loved the music, loved the crowd, loved Lijiang.

Almost famous

We stand there on the cement stage of the schoolyard, and as I gaze out across the sea of Chinese children, neatly ordered in rows, I forget to feel awkward about being a spectator on stage, and instead am delighted by the precious smiling faces peeking out from under a variety of ethnic costumes and western garb as they go through their morning exercise routine. By Chinese standards, this is no ordinary exercise regimen, nor indeed an ordinary school. Jin Xing Primary School is a government project of sorts – a school that prioritizes ethnic minorities both in the student body and the curriculum. Thus some students wear costumes from their cultural heritage, and we are treated to a medley of ethnic dances, ranging from Mongolian to Naxi, on this cold, cloudy day in a cement schoolyard in Kunming.

After the students finish, we make our way back to the building to finish our guided tour of the facilities, but I find myself picked off from the herd of white people by 40 or 50 of the most adorable little jackals one could imagine. They grin, laugh, wave, shout, and mob me both verbally – practicing their battery of canned English phrases, including “How are you?” and “I love you!” – and physically, demanding in the most gleeful of ways that I take their photograph. Again. And again. And again.

How could I not love China on a morning like this?

San Martin

It all started with a fork.

Alone and sick in Cuzco and being forced to move to a new hostel, I wasn’t feeling particularly social. I journeyed down the hill and found a small comedor where I ordered something to go, determined to hide in my room. But the comedor didn’t have any plastic utensils, so when I got back to the hostel I sought out a fork from the shared kitchen area and promptly crept up the rickety stairs back to my room.

Overcome with exhaustion, I decided to just go ahead and pack first thing in the morning rather than that night, but figured washing the fork and returning it to its rightful place would be the decent thing to do. I headed for the sink in the courtyard outside the kitchen, and that is where I encountered Martin.

Tall and lean, his North American accent hid his true origins – part Argentine, raised in Colombia – as he kindly offered to wash my fork for me. And then, so naturally that I can’t even begin to trace the thread, we crafted a discussion about life, the universe, and everything.

Martin does not believe in coincidences, and he does believe in God. Some time ago, a pivotal event in his life was the catalyst that led him to dispose of his belongings and focus his efforts on truly living one day at a time, with intention, with connection.

By and large, I find myself a bit awkward around very religious people, as I had very little religion in my own upbringing and therefore feel out of my element. One of the remarkable things about Martin, however, is that I found his discourse on spirituality not at all discomforting, and so when he and his Colombian travel companion, Joel, offered to share some tea with me, I gladly accepted, and found that in this moment a cup of tea was not just a cup of tea. It was too perfect that I had just finished the book Three Cups of Tea; of course Martin would say that these things happen for a reason. Somehow, I had the vague impression that this was not the first cup of tea I’d had with Martin and Joel, and I do not think it will be the last.

The girl in the striped skirt

It's funny that Adriana was the girl who stood out to me our first weekend in the small indigenous community of Los Naranjos. We had just arrived from Quito to begin our month-long homestay and reforestation project with the people here, and that Sunday morning we all made the trek to the community school for a special ceremony honoring the national flag. All the girls arrived in their tuná, the traditional woven brightly colored skirts of the Tsa'chila tribe, and there in my line of sight was Adriana, looking pensive.

Fast forward a month, and the community came together once again, this time for our going-away party (despedida). Here was Adriana again, and inexplicably - her family didn't host anyone in our group so she had very little direct contact with us while we stayed in the community - she was quite attached to us. It was hard not to fall in love with her again as she wrapped her arms around my waist and informed me that she was really going to miss me when I was gone.

I suppose that might seem a bit strange, since this was the first time I had ever talked to her, but it was an enlightening moment to see that our presence in this community, though only lasting a month, and perhaps really only comprising a few moments, left many deep impressions.

Whoa, Nelly

I have to admit that the moment she started talking to us, a tiny seed of suspicion planted itself in my brain and sprouted the question, “what does she want from us?” I also have to admit that the sprout is still sitting there, but at the end of the day it will never become a full-grown tree.

Nelly is clearly a woman who gets things done, and she made no mystery of the fact that she was fishing for information and connections. Then again, when we saw her several hours later, while still waiting to see the doctor at the Santo Domingo hospital, she also went and tracked him down and made sure we were the first ones in his office.

Our first conversation started out like so many do when I’m traveling in developing countries; Nelly walked up to us and asked us where we were from in less-than-fluent English. It turns out that English came from her living in California for a few years, where her son was born. Nelly also shared with us her mission in life: to start a foundation in Santo Domingo that provides support and education for people with diabetes. That wasn’t the only thing she shared though; she also invited us to drop by her house for coffee any time we were in the city. Now here’s a woman you want in your corner.

A beautiful view

Marcelo is one of those people whom you might meet and discover that the cynic in you is thinking he is too good to be true, but then you quickly realize that he is the real thing. He is energetic and passionate about his work and his community, and I found that we fell into an easy rapport. It’s not all that common to find someone so easy to talk to, let alone someone so easy to talk to in Spanish. He was an immensely gracious host and adept teacher; thanks to Marcelo I experienced one perfect afternoon in what was otherwise a series of unfortunate events.

A combination of factors, including the timing of the national police force strike in Ecuador, led to Marcelo being introduced to me. He is a veterinarian who spent years doing research in the Galapagos but, upon returning to his home community of Bellavista on the coast of Ecuador, realized that there was much he could do for his community. Thus Bellavista began to earn its name in two ways: by literally improving the view through projects such as community-wide beach clean-ups, and by forming a vision of Bellavista as a sustainable community that works to protect its surroundings and reduce the environmental impact of both the small community and the larger neighboring town of Bahia de Caraquez. And what a beautiful vision it is.