Today marks the eighth post I've made since I resurrected this blog for the trip to Vietnam. Eight posts in as many days is practically a milestone. To compare my blogging now to my efforts two years ago would show an exponential improvement--a lion to a mouse. I began this blog to document my experience in East Asia from June 2009 to May 2010. In the entire year I spent studying abroad, I posted eleven entries--not even once a month.
This blog used to be titled
Riffing China. In fact, the old title is still in the URL. I think I'll leave it there as a reminder of this blog's beginnings. The title had emerged through conversations about how I was going to document my travels and keep in touch with people at home. My sister was the one who suggested the word "riffing." It turned out to be the perfect word. It captured not only my pledge to produce thoughtful responses to the sights and events I experienced during my travels, but also carried a personal touch because, hey, I play guitar. When I think of riffing, I think of creative expression, melodic illustration of thought or emotion, with fingers dancing on a fretboard to tell the story of life through song. I think it's an awesome, inspirational word and I'm grateful for her suggestion.
To me, the word choice of China is as meaningful as the idea of China is complex. Together with the word riffing, the title reflects my goal to learn and write about one of the world's oldest and most influential civilizations. It was also meaningful because I realized I knew almost nothing about China but had many assumptions and associations. Five years ago, all I knew about China was the red flag with five yellow stars, the Communist influence on Korea, and the cultural influence on Japan that included the plow, chopsticks, and written language. I knew there were one billion people living in China, with a one-family, one-child policy. I knew US citizens have a ridiculous love-hate relationship with inexpensive Chinese-made imported goods. And really, that was about it. Without knowing the gravity of the error, I had consolidated everything Chinese and placed it under the umbrella of the People's Republic of China, or PRC. It wasn't until this study abroad experience that I first learned there are actually two nations called China: the PRC and Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China.
My old definition of China as a country was just tossed out the window. How can China be a country if there are two of them? While I was in Taiwan, I was enrolled in a program called cultural immersion, where we spent 13 hours each day talking in only Mandarin. We were instructed in manners and social norms. We learned about history, about social identity. We started to understand China as being an idea that reflected a global culture that is exceptionally diverse, even among Chinese provinces. To say China is not to say Ireland, or Italy. It's more like saying Europe, in the sense that both comprise various regions that are unified by a sense of common identity.
Defining China as a culture, not a country, was the beginning of my journey. Everywhere I studied, indeed everywhere I traveled in Asia, the influence of Chinese culture was extensive. It's the culture of China--the language, the values, the history--that I explored during my year abroad, because Chinese culture is dominant in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore where I studied, and yet so different in each. Chinese culture is also greatly influential in Malaysia and Indonesia, two other places I went.
In establishing
Riffing China, I had pledged to riff ecstatic about my experiences with Chinese culture. It was a pledge I hardly lived up to. Eleven posts is insufficient to document a two week vacation in a land of exceptional beauty, exotic culture, and food of limitless tastes and flavors, let alone an entire year in six countries. Like so many good intentions, efforts to write blog posts fell by the wayside.
In my defense, I'd like to think I put the time not blogging to good use. In Taiwan and Singapore, I spent more time studying than ever before, mostly because I desperately needed to; although, I learned a great deal about ethics and communication. And in Hong Kong, I lived a rich life of travel, arts, and social activity that would never have been possible at a more challenging university. The same can be said for my brief stays in Bali, southern Malaysia, and Guangxi, China--I lived in the moment and lived well. Yet my experiences were largely recorded only by my (tenuous) memory. The blog doesn't even mention Malaysia, Indonesia, or even the week I spent in China.
Riffing China could be best summed up by one term: fail blog.
So a reimagining is in order. In a saccharine poetic cliché, the old blog burned and has become reborn as
Riffing Indochina. This new iteration of riffing will record life in Saigon, travels within Vietnam, and trips planned for Thailand and Cambodia with Mike and Lữ. Furthermore, this blog will also serve to breathe life into new opportunity, a second chance to contemplate and record my experiences during the year studying abroad. My time here so far has already presented numerous parallels that I can't wait to share in further posts. After all, the cultural landscape of Vietnam is largely a result of exchange between the Việt people and the Southern Chinese throughout history. In particular, I am passionate to learn about how and why the two cultures have an overlap of cuisine, written and spoken language, and ontology. It's fascinating to me, and I wish to share with you what I learn. Please comment, criticize, contribute. In the meantime, check back from time to time, because this will continue. I will be reminded of old experiences as I have new ones. I will reflect on them both. I will riff.
For who? Well, for you, I hope.
