we are the dreamers of the dream

Who are these people?

For the past few days two tall, light-colored xifangren, have been walking through our streets. They are photographing strange things. He took a picture of our telephone, our stove, cabbages, and my neighbor making noodles. She buys pineapple on a stick and speaks putong hua, the language of the people, but cannot understand what I say to her.

We are staying at the home/studio of the environmental organization that we are volunteering with, and exploring the local environs. Inside we are surrounded by familiar English, computers, even granola, but once we emerge from a little gate to the south east of the house, we find ourselves in the outskirts of rural Beijing. Much different from the cosmopolitan bustle of Wudaokou, our new home is full of low houses, soft coal-burning stoves, tiny alleyways, and many many people.

Most stare. Some ask us questions.

Where are you from? What are you doing here?

Does it matter? Where are we from? I could say across the stream, in the grove, through the gate and into the large courtyard house just a few hundred meters away... But usually I say, Wo men dou shi Meigouren, we are both American. But I wonder what this means to the people who hear it. Does it mean we are rich? Does it make them think all foreigners are strange and wander around taking pictures of battered household items?

What are we doing? We are tasting. We are lapping up the flavor and texture of what it means to be in this city. It is busy, it is modern, growing, and established. The young generation knows what it means to blush and beam with the pride of becoming a vibrant and emerging global power. Hidden in the bricks of their narrow-laned hutong homes, in the shadows of their wrinkled hands, the older generation knows the weight and the cost of the morphological changes it takes to form such a nation--like a pheonix, of sorts.

What are we doing? We are dreaming. That is all we can do to envision the China that once was and the China that the world will see. We dream up our own interpretations of the village we visit, imagining the lives of the owners of our noodle shop. And I am sure they dream of us to... they must picture our country to be one of excess, eccentricity, and (I hope) good natured tall people. I'll ask them tomorrow.