china moments

Once you've lived overseas two new phrases are bound to enter your speech. (insert country name here) days and (insert country name here) moments. For me china days are days that NOTHING seems to go right, appropriately named in that in china, most days doing even the smallest mundane tasks seemed to take all sorts of energy and paitence. Thankfully i don't have very many of these days.

now china moments, on the other hand, are definately increasing in frequency. especially with smells. I was in a rose garden a couple of weeks ago with a friend and the breeze shifted and it smelled like china. i just stopped and breathed as deep and long as i could, trying to make that smell/feeling last. On the flip side i was walking around the plaza one night with friends and we were at an intersection and again i could have closed my eyes and been in china...funny enough the smell that time was a sewer drain mixed with car exhaust-china smelled like this more often than not.

The question i've really been wresting with lately is if i want to go back to china. you'd think it would be a given, as much as i talk about it, but it really trips me up. I LOVE china. i love chinese people. i love *some* chinese food. I love the fact that it smells like a sewer-good grief. but am i supposed to spend the rest of my life there? i don't know. I don't know if the love is familarity or God. i look at pictures, i see people, i smell smells, i have china moments and my heart practly explodes. but does it do that because i know life there, i know what it feels like or is that where God has placed my heart? but really, how could you not want to spend forever there?