On the long flight from Seattle to Beijing, I met a mom. I didn’t catch her name, but we had a lovely conversation. She and her husband moved to the United States several years ago so he could study mathematics at the graduate level. He is now a professor at Florida State in Jacksonville. She works at the Mayo Clinic there. They have two children, a daughter who is ten and a son who is 23. She noted the eleven of us, clearly not Chinese, and wondered if we were traveling to China for a particular reason. I told her that we were educators, and that among other events we would be able to visit schools. That started a spirited conversation about the schools in China and the schools in the United States. She thinks that maybe it would be good to take the best features of both systems–an outstanding idea, I thought. She talked especially about the high respect the Chinese have for their teachers, and the strong commitment they as a family have to work and effort and study.
She talked about her family in China. Her parents now live with her and her family in the US, but her brother lives in southern China. Her voice softened as she talked about that part of the country; she loves the food, and the lifestyle, and the culture. She hopes that when I come to China again I’ll get to visit the south. She and her family have not been to China for many years; her daughter has never been here. They are going to visit some of the same sites in Beijing that we will see, and then they’ll travel south to see her brother and family there. When the plane landed in Beijing, she clapped, quietly. She is home.
I’ll remember that quiet, loving hand clap. It reminds that this country we will be touring for the next ten days is home to those who live here and home to those who have lived here. And “home” is a universal concept.
