China Through A Lens

For my last post on China, I thought I would do a visual recap of the highlights. Enjoy!

 Hong Kong

 

China Through My Eyes

Since returning from my trip to China, friends have been kind enough to humor me and ask for details of my adventure. After several recaps of my trip, I noticed a pattern of questions emerging.

“Did you like China?”

“How was the build?”

“How was the food?”

“How was it getting around China?”

“How was it traveling on your own?”

So here is my attempt to satisfy everyone’s curiosity.

China Love

China passed with flying colors! Even though China previously had not been on my must see country list and my expectations were fairly low key, I loved every minute of it. I was blown away by the intoxicating views of Hong Kong from the Peak; mesmerized by the orchard covered mountains of the Guangdong Province; stimulated by the energy of the historic, sprawling, and chaotic city that is Beijing; and was pleasantly surprised to really like modern Shanghai. I regret not getting to cover more ground on this journey, but I think I was able to see enough to know that I will someday return.

Favorite Moments - Habitat for Humanity

The task of narrowing down my favorite moments from the Habitat for Humanity build in China was harder than I thought it would be. Here are today's top contenders:

Moving Bricks

On the afternoon of the first day, eight of us were tasked with moving a large pile of bricks from the dirt road into several rooms of a half built house. It became clear that teamwork was going to be our strongest ally in achieving this goal. Within minutes we had organized ourselves into various roles and over the next few hours honed and perfected our brick-moving process all through the power of communication, flexibility, and hard work. And laughter. We had so much fun that our fellow volunteers working on the roof that day surely had to be jealous of the amount of laughter that came from our group. And if that didn’t get their attention, we tried our best to rub it in with our team huddle shout outs of “Masons!” The final hour of work was our finest moment. Under the leadership of Foreman Hoa and fueled by Turbo Kyle working the dragon head of the brick pile, we raced against the clock and successfully moved every last brick. I felt proud to be part of such a great team.

Tangerine Dreams – Habitat for Humanity

This is the first in a series of posts from my trip to China

Ah, China. Images and moments from my Habitat for Humanity build rotate like a slide show stuck in a perpetual loop in my head. Chickens, tangerines, candy designed to shock and awe (corn candy that tastes like well, corn. Cream of corn at that), watching morning Tai Chi to Ole, Ole, Ole, karaoke, cement beds, mastering squat toilets, meat juice, cucumber facials, breakfast greens, the masons vs. the roofies, fireworks, overwhelming kindness of the village families, and laughter. Lots and lots of laughter.

From the moment that I met the 20 other volunteers on the bus ride to Conghua, at the start of the Habitat for Humanity build, I felt like I was part of a family. Albeit, one big crazy, fantastic, and inspiring family.

Village Life

The village where we spent the week working is surrounded by tangerine orchards, vegetable gardens, lovely green hillsides, and waterfalls and creeks, which sadly were often polluted with trash. Traditional mud brick houses are peppered throughout the village. Chickens and dogs walk freely in and out of houses and along the dirt paths. Our Habitat for Humanity host, Michael Cheng, informed us that during the weekdays, the village mainly consists of elders, very small children, and the women who helped in the orchards. The older children go to a boarding school and the villagers who can work, work in Guangzhou in factories during the week. Everyone returns home on the weekend. A large part of the village income also comes from tangerines; the orchards dominate the hillsides surrounding the village. Given how precious the tangerines are, we were told to never take tangerines from the village unless we are offered them. Needless to say, we were inundated by the generosity of the villagers who gave us so many tangerines that we would often walk around with our hands and pockets overflowing with these delicious treats. Mr. Tao, one of villagers, even threw tangerines at us during a hike one day, in his excitement to share with us.

Vacation With A Purpose

Life has certainly been interesting this past year. As many of you know, I’ve made some big changes recently and I’m currently forging a new life path on my own. I am slowly finding my footing and I am anxious for what this next chapter in life will mean for me. Part of this new journey is about challenging and exposing myself to new adventures where I can learn and grow from others. Traveling has always been my preferred choice for just such things and has already played an enormous part of my growth throughout the years. When faced with two weeks of vacation that I typically take off around Christmas to travel, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do for my first big solo event. Somehow the thought of traveling just for the sake of travel sounded empty and while a break from life was needed, I didn’t exactly feel like celebrating with the usual holiday. I wanted to do something productive and completely out of my comfort zone.

While researching travel destinations that fit this criteria, I decided to look into global volunteer opportunities. A close friend of mine had done two tours of building homes with Habitat for Humanity during law school and inspired me to check out this organization. As luck would have it, the only Habitat for Humanity volunteer opportunity offered during the holiday season was with their Global Village program in China!

To be honest, China wasn’t high on my list of places to visit next. Not sure why, but I think the size of the country is intimidating in the same manner that India and Africa are and it certainly wasn’t a place I ever envisioned traveling to on my own.  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I applied and interviewed for a volunteer position building a house in the Guangdong Providence in Southern China. When I received the acceptance letter a few days later, I knew I had picked the correct path. Everything about this decision just felt right.

Here are some details of the China build: