“I didn’t have any big achievements or contributions in my life,” my grandfather said to me, “but I painstakingly worked, and as an average member of the working class, I’m still very capable.”

My grandfather is known for his practicality and plain-spokenness, but not for his sentimentality. Driving with him and my grandmother on a trip to their childhood village of Xiqi, his sudden sincerity caught me off guard. As we wound our way through Anxi County’s numerous mountains, I realized the magnificent vistas of peaks girdled by tea terraces and sleepy hamlets was triggering something inside him.

“I worked on this road that year when I wasn’t accepted to any universities,” my grandfather said. “This is it. Right here. Your grandmother and I both worked on it.”

Although the location was the same, the paved, narrow, serpentine road was a far cry from the original trail my grandparents helped build 54 years ago. Burdened with his landlord class background, my grandfather suffered persecution from the village peasants who forced him to build the road, carrying bricks that were too heavy for him. Having graduated from Anxi High School, my grandfather’s background also led to his rejection from every university to which he applied. That year, he had no choice but to toil in the fields. Understandably, he doesn’t have many kind words to say about Mao Zedong.

“Some people said that back then, if Mao farted and proclaimed his fart smelled good, you couldn’t say he was wrong. If you did, you were a counter-revolutionary.”

In the car, my grandmother grumbled, “Why are you saying all this?”

“There’s freedom of speech now,” he snapped back. “Americans can criticize even their president. Stop pretending like we live in a Marxist-Leninist society.”

Xiqi’s villagers have stopped pretending. Maoist sayings painted on the walls of houses to demonstrate one’s revolutionary fervor had faded nearly beyond recognition. The once bright red ink had weathered away or perhaps had been scrubbed off by disillusioned peasants. One saying stated “Everyone must bear responsibility for counter-revolutionaries,” while another stated “Everyone engages in production, every household ensures security.” These slogans, forged during the Cultural Revolution and condemning capitalist roaders, have been replaced by Haier and China Mobile advertisements.

Xiqi has always been a starting point and never a destination. The countryside was where you stayed if you didn’t have what it took to make your way out to the cities. When my grandmother’s oldest brother broke through to higher education, villagers slaughtered pigs, carried him on a litter, and performed songs for three days. Xiqi’s people have always looked outward, trying to escape from the impoverished valley in which they were born. Those that succeeded have paid respect to their forbears by visiting and donating money to the village.

Xiqi’s surrounding mountains, which villagers said resembled a prone tiger, were once stripped bare of their trees by peasants desperate for firewood because they were unable to afford gas or coal. Today, saplings once again clothe the tiger, but now row after row of tea terraces are also carved into its flanks. Before Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, Xiqi peasants relied on subsistence farming to scrape out a meager living; now they’ve devoted acres of farmland to growing tea as a cash crop.

There were probably, at most, a couple hundred people in the village when I visited, all of them engaged in some part of the tea production process. Many dwellings were abandoned, and rivers that once accommodated sampans were now trickles of water. Most of the males were away selling enormous cloth bags filled with tea leaves in a nearby town, while the women, donning straw hats and crouching in the soil beneath a fierce noonday sun, picked tea in the fields. The very elderly and the very young walked around amidst mongrel dogs and flocks of chicken and geese; adolescents and young adults were nowhere to be seen.

But according to my grandparents, compared to the rest of rural China, Xiqi’s peasants have done very well for themselves. Funded by revenue generated from hundreds of acres of tea shrubs and donations from wealthy, overseas family members, Xiqi farmers have built better homes, temples, and village infrastructure —all signs of their rising standard of living.

Expensive, four-story houses fitted with shiny, ceramic roof tiles and enclosed by metal gates have sprung up next to dilapidated hovels. Many families had moved into their new residences and placed their ancestors’ spirit tablets in their old rammed earth homes.

Some ancestors are better off. Pooling together their money, family members have constructed many new kinship clan shrines. A new temple built in 2007 for the Taoist god Xuan Wu cost over a quarter of a million dollars (USD). Intricate dragon statues and stone carvings decorate the temple’s interior, while power lines, water pipes, and paved roads can be seen crisscrossing through the village from the temple’s threshold.

My grandparents left their village thinking they would never return. Rural life was grueling, and there was nothing in Xiqi for them except political discrimination, poverty, and hunger. Yet here they were again, showing me the mud houses where they were born, the room where they learned to play the lute with their cousins, and the elementary school where they first met while teaching night classes to illiterate peasants.

“I walked out of my hometown by going to college,” my grandfather reminisced about the second time he applied and made it in. “If it weren’t for college, I’d be just like the village peasants right now. I’d be stuck there. My face toward the loess, my back toward the sky.”

Determined to escape from their rural upbringing, my grandparents confronted larger-than-life forces of revolution, calamitous famine, and massive socioeconomic upheavals. My grandmother left her family at the age of 16 from Xiqi to seek work in the city, while my grandfather chose the unpopular college specialization of geological surveys just to have a chance at leaving the village. Later, his job of searching for ore took him on far-flung journeys through at least two-thirds of China.

Although my grandparents grew up in a rural environment, they say they could never become used to living in Xiqi again. Despite the rising living standards brought by Deng’s economic reforms, the village has remained the same at heart. Many of the customs and folklore that existed 39 generations ago survive to this very day despite wave after wave of social engineering projects fixed on the eradication of the village’s traditions. Spirit tablets burned in the fires of the Cultural Revolution were remade. An effigy of Xuan Wu about to be shattered in the “Smash the Four Olds campaign was secretly saved. Peasants still live their lives in ways similar to past generations.

On our way back from Xiqi, my grandparents said that if I hadn’t asked to see their old village, they wouldn’t have gone on their own. Although much is still the same, from their perspective, the place and its people have changed. The layout of the village looks eerily unfamiliar. Close family and friends have either moved out or passed away. What used to be home no longer feels like a place they know, and they don’t plan on visiting much in the future.

“We have no more close relatives left there,” my grandmother said. “We’ve done all that we ought to do.”

My grandparents visited their parents when they were alive, swept their tombs when they passed away, lit joss sticks, burned spirit money, and donated money for family shrines and Xuan Wu’s temple. They feel they’ve fulfilled their filial duties, and they want to move on.

“Do you remember? When Grandmother was still alive, Mom frequently went back,” my own mother told my uncle afterward. “Ever since our grandmother passed away, Mom doesn’t feel like that place is home anymore.” In many ways, it is my grandparents who have changed, not the village.

I tend to romanticize the past and harbor nostalgic feelings for bygone eras to create a safe haven where I can seek shelter from the present. As a reminder of my own uncertain life trajectory, the here and now often feels doubtful and, at times, frightening. This is the same fear my grandfather felt while laboring away on the village road the year every university turned him down. It is the same fear my grandmother felt when she left home at the age of 16 to seek work in a city 280 miles away. By looking back on their accomplishments in the face of overwhelming odds, their fear has evolved into pride, but mine is just beginning. Xiqi was a chance for me to see their humble conditions and remind myself that my family has produced individuals who will never be passive, but who will instead constantly struggle and strive for the best.

So this is not a story of how I returned to my ancestral home, felt rooted, found meaning, and found myself. I’m not sure that would be a very interesting story. As much as I wanted to feel a sense of belonging to the village where my ancestors have lived — generation after generation, for nearly eight centuries — Xiqi felt foreign and its lifestyle incompatible. My immediate family has gone a long way in three short generations. My grandparents’ native tongue is Min Nan; my mother’s is Mandarin; and mine is English. My grandparents believe in Taoism and Buddhism; my mother has been baptized; and I’m still confused and undecided. The drastic changes Xiqi and my family have undergone remind me that the pace of today’s world is only increasing, and even things I once imagined to be everlasting can change.

But I still listen rapt with attention when my grandparents tell stories about how they beat pots and pans during Mao’s Kill a Sparrow campaign until sparrows fell out of the sky from utter exhaustion, or about how the water monkey, a mythical underwater creature that dragged village children to a watery grave, was vanquished. By writing down their stories and memories, I pay tribute to ancestors and my grandparents in my own way.

David Xia

Went hiking near Mount Rokko with the Canadians. Before we were supposed to meet up, Otousan called and I told him what I was doing. “Oh, that’s really good; I used to go hiking there a lot.” I felt a little surge of happiness as the ties to my father tightened and solidified a little more. It was another clue to who he was, from a source that I had never really had access to.

Near the top of the mountain, I rang a huge bell at the shrine in honor of my birthday. It pealed in a low murmuring ring that reverberated in the spring air.

*

 The Bunraku play was The Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Apparently, everyone loves a classic love-and-death story — the theater was packed. The narrator sang the plotlines and the dialogue, stretching the syllables so that they almost seemed pliable. In one of the most famous scenes, Tokubei is hiding underneath the kimono of Ohatsu, his lover, to avoid being seen by his rival. To signal that he is willing to die with her, he presses his neck against her ankle and draws her foot along his neck. Their bodies move slowly, deliberately; his impassive face, white and still, leans wearily against a beautiful vermillion and purple kimono.

*

When he saw me in the café, he had that stunned “oh!” look on his face … not really sure why. It hadn’t been that long. It felt weird for about two seconds, and then everything fell back into place, like nothing had happened. Like we were still just those two transplanted Canadians that had found each other.

How was it still so easy to be around him?

On the walk to the izakaya, he referred to our inside joke regarding my failure to siphon money from him, but in the past tense. We watched the flames kiss the skewers of chicken, cartilage, and pork, and listened to the fat drippings hiss in protest as they were turned quickly on the grill. His awkward attempt at using guidebook Japanese only won him a raised eyebrow and a confused grin from the cook, not the draft beer he wanted. He looked at me, sighed, and chuckled as I requested the beer for him.

Afterward, we walked to the Kyobashi train station. I had to go to Starbucks to use the washroom, so we stopped in the middle of the station’s white-tiled walkway, conscious of the negative space and tiny pools of rainwater.

*

Post-dinner, there was lengthy debate over whether to go to the Cavern Club to see a Beatles cover band play, or to Betty’s, a drag queen bar. The lads from Liverpool won out. Ni(shi)no and the vice principal, “Chuck,” were giddy. I laughed at Nino’s excitement, remembering a late afternoon after school when he taught me how to play “Blackbird” on the guitar in an empty classroom.

After three sets, we decided to leave, but at the point of departure, Chuck groaned and announced he wasn’t going to go home that night. And thus, the all-nighter was born. Chuck and Nino first headed off to a restaurant for more food, and I went to the post office. Nino left the restaurant to find me, and then we got fantastically lost in the dark, winding alleys of a shotengai. I questioned his status as a son of Osaka, and he laughingly assured me we’d find Chuck. We found him, eventually, and he was disgruntled by our lateness. Nino was extra nice to him. Around 1:30 a.m. we left the restaurant. Inspired by the Cavern Club, the two decided they wanted to wail the night away, paying loving homage to “Strawberry Fields” and women named “Eleanor Rigby” and “Michelle,” swaying and singing famous choruses in tone-deaf, katakana-ized English. I looked at Nino, his face alit and happy, as he stood with Chuck’s arm slung over his shoulder, nodding for me to come with them. I smiled back, and ran to catch up with them.

*

It was loud. I looked over and saw everyone with their noisemakers and bento boxes. The players were really far away, but I could see Tani getting ready to hit. The oen leader was getting ready to start up the cheer, so I picked up my noisemakers and got ready to hit them in time to the syncopated rhythm. With a guttural yell, a voice and body seasoned by years of unwavering devotion, he swooped the enormous Hanshin Tigers’ flag side to side, and we stood up, yelling, clapping, and cheering in unison in the humid summer night.

*

We drove up a long and winding road that led us to Mount Fuji’s fifth station. By then it was pitch black, and I was feeling a bit sleepy. We had to park about 2 kilometers away from the station. Upon exiting the car, I immediately noticed how much cooler it already was.

At the fifth station, Wayne disappeared, sending Linda on a frantic search. While waiting to purchase a big walking stick, a bunch of guys dressed up in colorful felt dragon and monkey costumes ran into the store. A nice American man took a “before” picture of us, and we were off.

There was a part where the trail became flat ground, and we could see Yamanashi spread out in front of us in an awesome and glittering panorama. So pretty.

Onward and upward!

The rest of the climb was a big, black, windy blur. There were spots where the terrain turned traitorous and treacherous. In some parts I was worried that if I stood up straight, I would be blown off the side of the mountain and die a horrific death. We came to a tricky section of almost vertical rocky terrain, which in itself was challenging to navigate, but dim lighting conditions and a herd of descending hikers made for an even more frustrating climb.

Onward and upward?

Then it started to rain.

There were moments when I had to swallow the urge to cry because there was just no time for that. It’s a wobbly feeling realizing that there is no way out. You have to keep climbing, no matter how much you just want to shut down.

We reached the eighth station around 4 a.m., soaked, tired, cold, tired, and tired. We found Julia, who had arrived about an hour earlier and had managed to seduce most of the staff with her Drew Barrymore-like looks. “You like ‘Charlie’s Angels’?” “Oh! Yeah, I do …” “You look like!” “Oh. Okay, thanks …!” I fell asleep while sitting on a crate, but was still incredibly cold and dazed upon waking. At that point, I had no interest in making it up the summit. I just wanted to get off Mount Doom, I mean, Fuji …

Around 4:30 the rain stopped, and we headed out, onward and downward. My first glimpse of the view literally stopped my heart. We were above the clouds. It was amazing. I’d never seen anything like it (and probably never will again).

*

i was never good at finishing things.

my heart feels muddled and heavy.

you know those times when you must cry, for your own sake…watashi no tame ni…

but I’m at Kansai airport. waiting for my plane … home…

*

Naomi Ishiguro

I knew I was going off the beaten path when even my taxi driver looked worried.

“So where exactly should I drop you off?” he asked, as his pickup attempted to ford streams and waterfalls flowing over the Costa Rican mountain road.

“Maybe by the river?” I told him, shrugging. “My instructions just say to go to the town of Bambú, and they’ll find me.”

“They” are members of Costa Rica’s Bribri tribe. I would be spending two days with them in a remote village called Yorkín, which is only reachable by dugout canoe. I was told I’d be learning about their crafts and customs, watching demonstrations, and exploring the local terrain, but I still felt unprepared. As the nice lady who arranged the tour told me, once you get into the canoe, “you’re in their hands.”

She did give me instructions to go to a village called Bambú — but nothing more. “It sounds vague,” she said. “But it works.”

And it did.

Taking the scenic route

My taxista had nothing to worry about. A man in wading boots and a dirty cutoff T-shirt greeted me in Bambú.

“Soy Luis,” he said. Seconds later, Roberto, my other guide, appeared, and I was escorted to a big, crude, green canoe.
    
The Yorkín river, which borders Panama and Costa Rica, was a thick silty brown from heavy rain that had fallen the night before, but I didn’t care. As Luis pushed away from the shore with a long stick, I realized that I would be entirely dependent on these people for the next two days. With no roads, phone lines, Internet access, or stores, I would have to trust strangers.

After 15 minutes in the canoe, my guides slid the craft onto a slice of riverbank that was covered in white stones. Right next to us, a quickly moving, rocky stream emptied into the river. I assumed that somewhere between the rushing stream and the dense vegetation was a path that would lead us to their Costa Rican village.

I was quite wrong.

“This is Panama,” Roberto told me. “We’re going to go to the waterfall.”

I had no idea we’d be taking such a side trip, but I was thrilled. (And crossing a border without going through customs felt delightfully rebellious.) I didn’t know the name of the waterfall or why it was so important that we visit it, but this trip was all about going with the flow, even if for the next 20 minutes I was wading against the current of a Panamanian waterway.

Looking at my sneakers, Roberto added, “Um, your shoes are going to get wet.”

That was an understatement. I tried to daintily hop from craggy rock to craggy rock at first, but I quickly gave up and followed my guides’ lead. Jeans, socks, sneakers and all, I plunged my legs into the water. I surrendered my purse, which held my precious camera, to one of the guides, who kept it above water with the grace of an acrobat as I clumsily stumbled behind them.

After 15 minutes of climbing over the treacherous, half-submerged rocks, we made it to the base of a thick waterfall. They splashed their faces and drank. I perched on a stone, forgot about my soggy clothes, and absorbed the mist of the Panamanian waters. Nearby, a lizard with a long, bright blue tail posed perfectly still on a rock.
 
Some guides suggest that if you’re looking for awe-inspiring Central American culture, you should skip Costa Rica. It’s better known for its beaches, rainforests, and volcanoes, so instead, explore the colorful native cultures that continue to follow their traditions in destinations such as Guatemala or Panama. Indigenous people make up only 1 percent of the population in Costa Rica, a comparatively stable country; Indian tribes here never erected anything comparable to the Mayan or Aztec pyramids that you’ll find in Mexico or Guatemala.

But, back in the canoe, still dripping from our waterfall excursion, we headed for Yorkín, a place that would prove that this culture too was determined to survive.

Paradise amongst the flora

The canoe stopped in a grassy bank, and I was met by two girls who stared at my blonde hair and giggled, but said little. An old man escorted me down a muddy road, and before disappearing behind the banana trees, pointed to a rustic health center.

“A doctor comes every fifteen days,” he said. “But we’re usually pretty healthy people.”

The soundtrack of Yorkín was the rushing river, giggling children, and cackling roosters. The air was fresh and damp. Children spent the day picking and sucking on exotic fruits, while turning anything possible into a soccer ball — crushed plastic bottles, large seeds.

My housing for the night was an open-air lodge with a thatched roof. I traded my sopping wet sneakers for the flip-flops in my bag. Alone on the big platform, I felt awkward.

There was no place to sit. The area was so open that I was afraid to change out of my wet pants because I felt like the whole tribe might watch. My fears were unfounded. In this village, neighbors have jungle between their homes. I peered over the low ledge. Bright vegetation was everywhere.

Over banana cakes and a bitter juice, I was introduced to Noe, who would be my primary guide in the village.

Noe took me on a vegetation tour and pointed out the uses of native plants. He explained that large green gourds were turned into bowls, and I sampled a sour version of sugar cane that the Bribri chew on to extract juices. I learned about a bush-like grass that has long slender leaves that spread out into a fan. Noe explained that they tear the fan into strips, then dry and dye them for weaving.

“There are very few plants we don’t use,” he said.

He pulled a yellow pod off of a tree and cracked it in half to reveal almond-sized beans, covered in a slimy mucus.

“Cacao.”

Noe showed me how to take the seeds out and suck the slimy white stuff off of them — it tasted nothing like chocolate (that flavor comes from deep within the seeds), but it was sweet.

“Later,” he told me, “you’ll see a chocolate-making demonstration.”

Keeping culture alive

The tourism program is run by a cooperative of women. Calling themselves Estribata, they formed about 20 years ago when they feared they were losing their culture: people were forgetting uses of medicinal plants, children stopped learning the Bribri language, and men were leaving Yorkín to work on sticky banana plantations, which were full of pesticides. After a 28-year-old villager returned sick and then died from cancer, Bernarda Morales Marin decided that was the last straw.

“Our culture is just as valid as all the other cultures in the world,” said Bernarda, the group’s founder.

Sharing with tourists, they decided, would be the best way to help the community economically and give villagers a strong incentive to preserve their heritage. With the help of nonprofit groups, they built the housing structure with a tall, thatched roof, and started inviting guests. The first year about 10 people came. That number eventually grew to several hundred visitors a year.

Villagers also started exporting organic cocoa to Italy and bananas to Germany. With the mixed sources of income, families went from earning nothing to bringing in about $20 USD a month.
Bernarda explained all of this to me by candlelight. There were no electricity lines in the village, but tourism income helped raise money for solar panels in the tourist lodge’s kitchen and in the local school. Another positive result: Children now learn the Bribri language in school.

Visitors’ activities range from making thatched roofs, to hiking, to exploring local hot springs. I told Bernarda that I’d like to take a hike the next day and learn how to weave.

“Of course,” she said.

And then, it was chocolate time. A woman brought out a tray of roasted cacao beans. She rubbed her fingers over them and then dropped them through a metal grinder, letting the resulting coarse powder land on another tray. Once she finished, she held that tray over the ground and, with a few expert shakes, sent the shell bits drifting into the dirt.

She prepared to run the powder through the grinder again. But first, she turned to me. “How do you think it’s going to come out?” she asked slyly in Spanish. “A powder, like coffee?”

I nodded. 

It was my turn to grind. As I turned the handle, tiring quickly and worrying that I seemed like a weak city girl, I saw that there was no powder at all. Instead, a rough brown paste with an intoxicating chocolate scent was falling from the grinder. My chocolate teacher smiled.

When it was all finished, she mixed it with sweetened condensed milk, creating a soft, thick chocolate pudding that I still dream about.

Treasures and treasured memories to take home

During much of my time there I felt slightly awkward, an oversized foreigner dependent on her hosts to survive. Sometimes Noe abandoned me when he ran out of things to say. A little girl followed me around, asking my phone number and assuring me that she would have it memorized by the time I left (she did). The entire village, where about 200 people live, shared one cell phone.

Nighttime in Yorkín was a little scary. My eyes never adjusted to the blackness, and when I stumbled outside to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I could only think about jaguars and snakes.

I woke up in one piece the next morning. After eating banana pancakes for breakfast, I borrowed someone’s rubber boots for a hike up the mountain. I hoped, futilely, to see a jaguar, but we did spot a fleeing agouti and a lot of tiny red frogs with blue legs. I almost walked into a beetle, the size of my hand, hanging above the trail. After inspecting the beetle’s elaborate design and colors, I wasn’t surprised to learn that it was called a harlequin beetle.

The trail was a mix of knotted tree roots and oozing mud. Tourists wear their expensive hiking boots at their own risk. The locals know better. They sport rubber boots or simply go barefoot.

When I came back, I sat down with a young woman named Fidelia for a weaving lesson using the same plant Noe had shown me the day before. When she wound the strips around themselves, it looked easy. Then she handed them to me. My fingers seemed a lot fatter than hers. I got to take home a tiny basket, of which I had woven a single layer. I also bought a necklace made from rainforest seeds for my mom and a similar bracelet for myself. I purchased them off a small table where a makeshift “gift shop” had been created for my benefit. I was the only visitor there.

I lingered over lunch, which included fried ferns served on a plate made from a banana leaf, and lingered over the gift table, slightly worried about how I was going to get back to town to catch a bus to the capital city of San Jose. My guides were supposed to take me to the mainland in a canoe, but they didn’t seem worried, so I tried not to fret. The clock was ticking though, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the campo.

By the time I got back to Bambú, there were no more buses going to the pickup point for the San Jose bus. It was far too long to walk, and there was not enough time to call a taxi. Like a sequel to my Bribri adventure, I ended up hitching a ride with a friend of Noe’s about halfway, walking another part of the way, and was lucky enough to catch a cab for the final mile and a half. I boarded the San Jose bus with five minutes to spare. Before long, I had taken a bundle wrapped in a banana leaf out of my bag. It was the chocolate made the day before.

It disappeared just as quickly as my time with the Bribri faded to memories. And soon I was in San Jose, a place that already felt like a different world.

Rachael Jackson

Before my first son Seth was born in 2006, a friend told me, “You’ll be sleep-deprived until he reaches age four.” Then I heard this gem from a coworker: “Forget about getting back into shape because you won’t have time for yourself until he leaves for college.”

Of all the things I read and heard as I prepared for fatherhood, those are the two I remember most distinctly. So far they are both somewhat true, although sleep and exercise have steadily improved over the past two-and-a-half years.

That may change again because my wife just delivered our second son, Avery, this week. What little pockets of rest and energy I’ve been able to find are now being consumed by round-the-clock care for the infant while trying to entertain a hyperactive two-year-old on the verge of potty-training.

Don’t get me wrong. I am ecstatic to be a father. I let my wife Cara know early on that I was ready as soon as she was. I had a late start — Seth was born shortly after I turned 35 — and I felt that I only had a limited amount of time to establish a family while I was still relatively young and spry.

We’ve just returned from the hospital with Avery, and it’s amazing how much less stress there was this time. Maybe we were just very fortunate, but I think a little more experience at parenting has to be partly responsible. Not as many mysteries and fears fill your mind when you’ve already been through a 25-hour labor. This one was 16 hours — still no picnic — but with considerably less drama.

Now that I’ve been through these life-altering events twice, I’ve made three discoveries that I never saw in parenting books or on TV (disclaimer here that most men, I’m fairly certain, do much less studying and preparation before having children than women do):

1. The respect for your wife grows tremendously. No matter how much you love her or appreciate what she does for you, you may have no idea about her toughness until you see her give birth. And the result of her physical sacrifice is the greatest gift anyone will ever give you. How can you not grant her due props for that?
2. Your selfishness and poor time management skills come into clear focus. Everyone needs “me-time,” but when you have young children, any time you spend on things just for you is time not spent with them. Whatever your guilty pleasure — golf, TV shows, computer games, etc. — you may continue doing them but acutely aware your children are wishing you were with them. This is especially true on weekdays when you’ve already spent most of your waking hours at work, and the window to spend time with your children is extremely narrow. You could wait until they nap or sleep at night, but that may involve more planning or later nights than you have energy. Balancing selfishness with my children’s needs is an ongoing battle, at least for me.
3. You no longer doubt or worry so much about past decisions. Let’s face it: If things hadn’t happened exactly as they did, you wouldn’t have these children who mean the world to you just the way they are. If you had made different choices — in relationships, jobs, or virtually anything affecting the course of your life — you would not have ended up with these unique, unbelievable bundles of joy.

This last realization was, by far, the most profound for me. It washed away so many “what-ifs” and regrets about my past. Having that peace of mind was an unexpected relief after many years of second-guessing career paths and beating myself up over failed relationships. For someone who has struggled with depression throughout his life, this was a much-needed calming influence.

Even though I may be sleep-deprived for the next few years and may never get back into shape, I am finally happy on a consistent basis. In addition to my wife, I have two sons who give everything in my life much more purpose and meaning.

Some may find those salvations in other places: religion, their professions, humanitarian work. But what makes me see things more clearly, what makes me strive to be a better person, and what makes me more fully appreciate the here and now, is fatherhood.

Bob Lee

Some vows are better broken. When my maternal grandfather left Sicily as a 16-year-old boy to journey alone to America, he promised himself he would never return. He had grown up fatherless in a village along the rocky shore, and it held many unpleasant memories that he was eager to escape. He often told me that growing up, he had felt like an outsider, enduring uncles who excused their abuse and ill tempers for the sake of strengthening his character, and that he was happy to “never lay eyes on that place, or those people, again.” He certainly embraced no nostalgic feelings for his hometown, none that he admitted to, at least.

Four years ago, I had the opportunity to invite him to vacation in his small hometown of Castel di Tusa on the northern coast, with me, my husband, and my two sons. I tempted Pa by promising that he would fall asleep to the sound of the same Tyrrhenian surf that had crashed outside his window when he was a boy. I thought it would benefit him to return to the place where he had once felt underprivileged, now that he was a man with a rich life, a large family, and many accomplishments of which to be proud. After his initial knee-jerk refusal, with the help of some tender encouragement from his loved ones, he realized that he would like to see how things had changed after almost 70 years, and agreed to join us.

The bloodlines from both sides of my family tree originated from Castel di Tusa. Its founders were presumed to be refugees from the ancient city of Halaesa, Italy, founded in 403 B.C. by Archonides and later destroyed by the Arabs, and the ruins of previous eras are visible on a hill outside the town limits. Named for the walled 14th century castle, whose grounds the townspeople never saw, Castel di Tusa consisted of only four dozen or so houses which expectantly faced the harbor. The castle’s tower still stands and the nearby buildings in the center of town exude a medieval flavor even in the 21st century. The town itself fans out from the coast, with meandering lanes and alleyways with names like Via del Pesce, or Fish Way, and Strada de Café, or Coffee Street. I had visited in previous summers, when the streets were full with beachgoers, music, and dancing, and was thrilled by introductions made by my father’s sister to cousins, great-aunts, and great-uncles. In those encounters, I met several people who knew my grandfather and sent him their regards. So when we returned together, I brought Pa around to find the folks who had asked about him.

I knocked first on the door of one older woman who had been one of Pa’s close childhood friends. When Maria answered, my grandfather was standing several paces back.

Maria greeted me with enthusiasm, then quickly asked “And how is your nonno?”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” I said, stepping aside to reveal the 85-year-old man behind me.

Maria’s hand flew to her mouth in surprise, and then stayed there for a while, covering her neglected teeth in the face of Pa’s movie star smile. As they began to recall dear friends and old stories, she relaxed and forgot her self-consciousness. They were two young people again, reminiscing.

The town is quiet. Though electric streetlights now lent a soft glow to the evenings and houses currently stood where only trees had before, not too much of the scenery had changed. Pa’s former house was now four stories instead of one, and a low wall had been built between it and the sea. We could smell the fresh tang of the salty air and feel the pebbles on the beach shift under our feet as he undoubtedly had when he had cavorted with his young playmates. His favorite rock, to which he had gone for solace and contemplation, still stood at the water’s edge, and he climbed it with my sons.

“This rock used to be a lot cleaner when I lived here,” he joked. “Maybe we should scrub it, huh?”

The streets were now paved, in brick, no less, a result of restitution payments from the United States to Italy after World War II, but the piazzas still lay at the same intersections. Walking with Pa through the very squares he had frequented as a boy, I could picture him perched on a worn seat fashioned out of a log, intent on catching pieces of grown-up conversation. He pointed out to me the sites of his childhood stories: the railroad bridge festooned in red and purple bougainvillea where he had split open his knee while running home to dinner, the sheltered cove where his fishing boat had been anchored, and the dark tunnel where he and his friends once pulled a scandalous prank involving slippery prickly pear leaves and smelly outhouse pails. Sadly, Pa’s best friend had since passed away. However, we met the man’s son, and he recounted stories featuring my grandfather that his father had shared with him, and that made Pa’s eyes fill with tears.

Pa reacquainted himself with several relatives and spent the siesta hours either visiting or just roaming the steep streets on his own. He climbed stairs that at home would give him trouble, but he was reinvigorated there. As my grandfather told me of his afternoon’s adventures each evening, I could see his perceptions shifting, the tight stays of his defenses loosening. The warm reception he was receiving was like balm on the hurts he had held on to for over 60 years, and I was glad he had decided to make the journey.

I’m heading back to Castel di Tusa this fall with my family. Since our last visit, my grandfather has had one knee replaced, and the other, which he hasn’t yet addressed, has deteriorated further. He tires more easily now, and despite his friends’ entreaties to return, he won’t be joining us. I’ve promised to take gifts and good wishes with me, and that I’ll come back with video and photos. In doing so, I’ll be bringing him more than just images; I’ll be letting him find his hometown again.

Nancy Antonietti

It’s hard to know exactly where to begin with India. India is a contradiction. India is an ancient enigma. India is both a temptress and thief, modern and ancient, new and old, alive and dead. India will pay for the tuk-tuk to take you away from the train station just to sell you an expensive trip to Kashmir. India will take your picture and demand to be paid when you take hers. India will promise to not sell you anything and sell you something anyway. India will leave you to sit on the roof of the houseboat floating on a lake of shit, to watch the sun set and listen to the prayer calls. India will insist that there is no problem when it is clear that there is a problem. India will tear at your heart and she will restore your hope in humanity.

See what I mean? Where do you begin with that?

So forgive me if I start with something of which I am certain: I do not like airports. There are too many people asking too many vaguely accusatory questions, too many security checks, too many regulations, too many assault weapons, and too much waiting. I get uneasy, nervous, anxious, and I’m unable to relax. The domestic terminal of the Delhi airport, where my wife and I are waiting for a flight to Srinagar, in Indian Kashmir, does nothing to relax me. I am sitting in a thick knot of humanity, the scent of which hangs in the air around me. It wafts out from the strange and frightening toilets and floats through the lobby of impatient travelers. My anxiety is not eased when I have to identify my bags on the tarmac before they will be loaded on the plane. It is a jarring reminder that Kashmir is a disputed territory and terrorism is a very real threat.

I’m not sure what has brought us to India. I had a vague, idealized notion of a romantic India: a place of magic and wonder, where a young prince meets death, illness and old age becomes an enlightened ascetic. The United States refers to itself as the melting pot, but it is India where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians all swirl together, mixing in a thick stew of 22 constitutionally recognized languages. Kashmir represented the crown jewel of this mystery and mysticism, a paradise on Earth, fought over by nuclear powers.

Srinagar, in the heart of the Kashmir valley, is famous for its lakes; there are sections of town with streets of water, and shikara boats ply the channels like gondolas in an Indian Venice. The interconnected lakes, Nagin and Dal, are ringed with houseboats and filled with floating vegetable and flower gardens. For centuries the town was a major tourist destination, but visitors to Kashmir have declined due to terrorism. Though tensions between India and Pakistan have eased in recent years, violence occasionally flares up. All of Kashmir is heavily militarized. Each intersection has two or three soldiers posted, assault rifles ready, and there are frequent barricades in the road made of barbed wire and sandbags. The devastating violence has left the people war-weary, ready for peace.

Lonely Planet India (LP) advises a traveler to not under any circumstances book one’s accommodations in Srinagar before leaving Delhi, because you will overpay for a houseboat that has been over-promised. LP warns travelers to not believe anyone who tells you that the tourist office is closed, that it’s somewhere else, or has burned down. My wife and I, with our week’s worth of experience in India, are certain we know much more than our guidebook. We follow the advice of a very kind tout who found us wandering around in the Delhi train station, confused and lost. He is nice enough to put us in a tuk – tuk and bring us to his friend’s travel agency.

"This tourist office is closed today," he says. "I will show you."

He knows a guy who can get us a “great price.” He is doing us a favor. At the travel agency we are shown photos of a beautiful, ornate houseboat floating on a pristine lake surrounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. It looks like paradise. It is paradise, our travel agent assures us, and he will give us a bargain price. Just because he likes us. We pay up front.

We think we are clever, because this means we’ll have a ride waiting for us at the Srinagar airport. This is what you do when traveling as a Tourist. Your transportation is arranged for you, you have an itinerary, and everything is planned out ahead of time. There is a comfort in these certainties, because you do not have to worry about where you will stay, how you will get there, what it will cost, and whether you are getting a good deal. As a Tourist, your needs are catered to by someone who has done this before.

Mustaq is a tall, bronzed man with a loping gait and a quick, wide smile. He is easygoing and instantly likable. We chat about ourselves and about Kashmir as we drive to the houseboat, where we meet Hamid, the manager of the boat.

My wife and I envisioned ourselves exploring the streets of Srinagar by ourselves, stumbling across mysterious ancient ruins or maybe the Tomb of Jesus, or visiting a mosque. It is Hamid who tells us how it will be. We may have paid for our lodging, but we hadn’t paid for anything else. Because Kashmir is a disputed territory, Hamid tells us, we are required to have a guide with us at all times. Any tours we want to go on will have to be arranged through him. For a fee. Hamid sees our blue American passports and determines that we are like washrags filled with money that he must wring out.

"Americans and Saudi Arabians have all the money," he repeats several times as we discuss our itinerary, wringing, twisting. "They can afford anything."

But once we are through negotiating with Hamid, he and Mustaq make it clear that we are their guests, and Mustaq proceeds to treat us with the utmost of respect and care, attending to our every need.

Despite the heavy militarization of the area, and despite giving us the hard sell at every opportunity, Kashmiris are extremely friendly, always quick to offer a cup of their milky, cardamom-flavored tea. Pakistan and India may both lay claim to Kashmir, but the Kashmiri soul is fiercely independent. The Kashmiris we meet are a proud and happy people. When we meet someone, they invariably ask, "How are you?"; "Where are you from?"; "How do you like Kashmir?", in that order.

Kashmiris often say that they live in the most beautiful place on earth, and it breaks my heart a little bit every time I hear this. In addition to the smog that hangs over the mountains, the lakes and channels are clogged with pollution. Toilets in the houseboats flush directly into the lakes, filling them with thick, nasty sludge. The streets are thick with litter. The buildings are decrepit and decaying, like broken teeth. Despite all this, you can sometimes still see Kashmir’s beauty. The Mughal Gardens burst forth with fountains and flowers, the lakes shine like jewels when the sun strikes them, and the pride of the people who live there is humbling. It is painful to see this evident beauty diminished by a lack of resources to provide adequate sanitation.

We experience Kashmir as Tourists, riding from the Hazratbal Mosque to a trek in the Himalayas in a large, white SUV, like VIPs blasting through the streets of Baghdad. We are supervised every moment we are awake by either Mustaq, Hamid, or another guide. The few moments that we are free we spend on the roof of the houseboat, playing cards and watching the sun set over Lake Nagin.

As the week wears on Mustaq becomes more relaxed with us and we get brief glimpses of the real Srinagar, the one we came to see, not the sanitized Tourist version. He takes me to get my glasses repaired on the back of his moped. My wife and I take a tuk-tuk to the bank, and when we take too long, the driver takes a detour to pick up his two kids from school, who cram into the back next to us. I am waiting for my wife outside the restroom on an unescorted trip to Chakreshwari Temple when I’m surrounded by a group of giggling young girls, who ask if I’m married, and claim me as their boyfriend. They run away with peals of laughter when my wife returns. These glimpses are enough to leave us frustrated when we deal with Hamid, who insists that we are required by law to have a guide at all times, though it is now clear that we aren’t.

When we leave Kashmir on a public bus, we cease to be Tourists. Tourists do not sit on bumpy public buses filled with bags of mail and a few other Kashmiri travelers who blow smoke at the “No Smoking” signs and stare at my wife. Tourists do not eat in cheap roadside restaurants with the locals. Tourists do not arrive at the Jammu bus station as the sun is setting with nowhere to stay and nowhere to go. We are now Backpackers.

The road between Jammu and Kashmir is narrow, and it twists around hairpin turns, dives through interminable black tunnels, and climbs over mountain passes. As we bounce around bends, I look over the edge of the roadway and down, down, down, to the Chenab River which carved the valley we are riding through. I can see the burned-out shell of a bus much like the one we are riding in at the bottom — or is that a rock? My imagination is certain, but my mind is doubtful. The bus stops several times along the road. The winding mountain track is susceptible to landslides, and a recent landslide has blocked a portion of the road; until it is cleared, traffic can only go in one direction at a time. It is eight hours before we arrive in Jammu. We spend six hours there before boarding an overnight bus to Dharamsala, home-in-exile of the Dalai Lama.

Except it isn’t exactly an overnight bus to Dharamsala. It is an overnight bus to Mandi that stops at a junction near Dharamsala. At three in the morning. The bus disgorges us and we stand on the side of the road, wondering what to do next. It is at this point that we wish we were Tourists and not Backpackers. Tourists do not stand on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Backpackers must figure things out for themselves.

There are seven of us: two Irishmen, three Englishmen, and two Americans. We stand in a rough circle and eye each other. There is one small taxi with two drivers, one of the ubiquitous silver Tata sedans, with room for maybe three of us, with gear. A few minutes of conversation reveals that we all had found ourselves on the side of the road in the middle of the night in northern India in much the same way: We’d been talked into staying on a deluxe houseboat that had perhaps once been deluxe but no longer was. We’d been swindled on carpets, cheap trinkets, textiles, saffron, and everything else we’d bought that was supposed to be real but wasn’t. My wife and I had felt like fools for the times we’d been suckered like this, and it was nice to hear that we weren’t alone.

The taxi driver wants 500 rupees each to take us into Dharamsala, which we reject as unreasonable. This is how negotiation here works: One party begins with an unreasonable offer, the other party counters with an equally unreasonable offer at the opposite end of the pricing spectrum. We offer him 50 rupees each, expecting a capitulation, but he doesn’t budge. He has us over a barrel. If he doesn’t give us a ride into town, we’ll have to walk, which at three in the morning isn’t something we want to do.

"Let’s just pay him," someone says, and the driver’s eyes light up.

"I think a bus will be along soon," says one of the Brits, James.

We continue talking about our experiences. Someone lights a cigarette and passes it around. A truck rumbles by, and the driver ignores our attempts to flag him down.

"What should we do?" someone asks.

"I think a bus will be along soon," says James.

"You said that before. Why do you think a bus will come by?"

James shrugs. "I don’t know. I heard that they have buses that run into Dharamsala from here. One will be along soon enough."

"We might be here until morning."

James shrugs again. "I think a bus will be along soon."

The taxi driver decides he’s wasting his time. He starts his car and scolds us in Hindi through his open window as he drives away. The seven of us watch with forlorn resignation as the taxi’s red taillights fade in the distance. I set my pack on the ground and sit on it. No sense standing here if we are just going to be waiting around. The two Irishmen have the same idea, but the opposite reaction. They hoist their packs and head down the road toward Dharamsala, disappearing into the dark after a few moments.

"I think a bus will be along soon."

Out of the darkness two yellow eyes gleam, growing, with a dull roar, into the headlights of a vehicle. A bus! It rolls to a stop in the intersection in front of us and the door opens. James shrugs and smiles, and we all board the bus, paying the eight rupees fare to Dharamsala.

Once we reach Dharamsala, we still aren’t at our final destination. Dharamsala is at the base of an enormous hill, one of the many foothills of the Himalayas, and above us is McCleod Ganj, home-in-exile of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. We find the taxi drivers in Dharamsala to be much more reasonable, and soon are whipping up the steep, curving streets toward McCleod Ganj in a rusty, dented minivan.

Just shy of the crest of the hill, the taxi begins to slow. The driver stomps on the gas and the engine roars, but the van keeps slowing, rolling to a momentary stop before reversing direction and beginning to roll back down the hill. The driver steps on the brakes and kills the engine before turning to us. "The taxi is no more. It will not go."

"This way?" asks James, pointing up the hill. We are no longer surprised when vehicles refuse to work, when the power goes out, when things aren’t what they seemed to be. We have come to expect such things.

"Yes. Not much farther," the cabbie replies, nodding his head.

Of course, once we reach McCleod Ganj, it is still four in the morning, pitch dark, and all of the shops and hotels are locked up tight. Stainless steel doors have been lowered and secured with padlocks. We walk up and down the empty streets, banging on hotel doors occasionally, trying to rouse someone with no success. I am starting to get discouraged when a voice calls out to us.

"Hey, over here. I have a place you can stay!"

We’d been in India long enough to be skeptical. What is this guy doing out wandering around at four in the morning? What is he up to?

Nothing, it turns out. He had heard us making noise, and came out to help. He is a Tibetan refugee and works at the International Buddhist Hostel. He offers us warm, clean beds for a fair price. He knew what it was like to be new in town, and he wanted to give us a hand. It was beautiful gesture. It was moments like these that have brought us to India.

The sun is beginning to rise as I pull the thin white sheet to my chin and drift off to sleep, but I feel exhilarated, as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. We are safe, we have arrived, and we made our own way across the Indian countryside. It has forced us to interact with the population instead of observing them from behind glass. Outside our hotel room, India looms large, waiting for us. We have seen much since we left Srinagar that morning, and much more since we’d arrived in Delhi two weeks earlier, but I know, with certainty, that India still has innumerable surprises waiting for us.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

Click. Laura Norton scans a stranger’s photo album. Click. Santhoshi Doshi reads that one of her friends has changed jobs. Click. Ana Robic discovers that the classmates who annoyed her at school still hang out with one other.

The three women are peeping into Facebook pages of friends and strangers. They are Facebook snoops.

There’s nothing wrong with it — after all, those who post know that information is out there for all the world to see.

But checking out people online has a deliciously furtive feel.

“Snooping” means browsing the messages, pictures, and videos of people who don’t restrict their Facebook pages.

Just click and enjoy.

It’s easy to be nosy

“Snooping on Facebook is a result of the way the information is presented to us, the ease of access and the visual aspects of information,” said Jeff Ginger, a sociologist working on a study called “The Facebook Project.”

Anonymity, in other words, abets.

“It’s gossiping, but without any blame,” admitted snooper Santhoshi Doshi, a business intelligence expert in Mountain View, California, who likes to look at people’s wedding albums on Facebook. “You’re free to look at stuff that you generally might not look at.”

Snooping is so popular that there are more than 150 Facebook groups with names such as “I am a proud Facebook snooper,” “People who snoop on other people through Facebook,” and “I’m a Facebook snoop and not afraid to admit it!”

“Why did he friend his ex?”

Since people voluntarily upload their pictures, videos, and information, realizing that anyone can see, why does rolling through strangers’ pages seem slightly sleazy?

Sociologist Ginger says it’s because one can get information impossible or uncomfortable to get in person.

“If you ask someone if they’re dating in person, you unleash a whole barrage of implications. But if you look at this on Facebook, you answer your question without all of the fallout.”

And so, when Courtney Jones, a waitress from Norman, Oklahoma, is interested in a boy, her first step is to review his Facebook page.

“When I look at a page, I read into what is on there. Like if a guy is in a picture that alludes to something sexual with a girl, I assume that if they’re willing to be that open with their sexual life in front of the camera, I’m sure they’re willing to do more behind the camera,” she says.

Jones also snoops on behalf of her friends, especially when they start dating new people.

“I’ll go through his Facebook word for word, and see if he has anything I wouldn’t approve of. Pictures, wall-to-wall, everything. I gotta have my girls’ backs!”

Mirror, mirror on a Facebook wall

While it does seem that we snoop because we’re curious about those around us, it has more to do with our need to know ourselves, suggested Shanyang Zhao, a sociology professor at Temple University.

“Getting to know others is important for the purpose of getting to know ourselves, for others serve as a looking glass in which we see ourselves,” said Zhao, who specializes in Internet and human interaction.

Maybe this explains why Ana Robic, a foreign language student from Brussels, snoops on classmates who were mean to her in high school. Robic belongs to a 108-member Facebook group called “Facebook helps me spy on people I don’t like.” Said Robic: “I look for something that shows me that I have a better life, so that I can say, ‘I don’t like you and look, I’m better than you are!’”

Zeeshahn Zafar, a public relations manager from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, snoops to gauge her popularity — or lack thereof.
“I read messages that other people have posted on that person’s wall. If a person has not replied to my messages, I check to see whether he or she has replied to other people’s messages.”

If you’re ignoring someone on Facebook, then you’d better have a good excuse.

“You look familiar”

Zhao argued that Facebook snooping will make communication more subtle, sophisticated, stylish, and “further differentiated based on personality, age, education, class, among other things.” But he also acknowledged that it keeps people from talking — or gossiping — with each other as much.

“I don’t talk on the phone as much as I used to with my friends,” Norton agreed. “And even when we do talk, I might say something and my friend will talk about how she knew about it through Facebook. It’s pretty ridiculous.”

There’s also such a thing as too much information.

“I sometimes meet new people at a party, maybe friends of a friend, and they seem familiar,” Doshi said. “And then I realize that I’d snooped on them through a friend’s Facebook page. I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from blurting that out.”

In The Fray Contributor

In the fall of 2002, I was teaching third grade at an independent, coeducational elementary and middle school in Manhattan. As October rolled by, I asked a student what he was going to be for Halloween.

“I’m going as an Indian,” he said, excitedly. He seemed to be looking forward to the upcoming candy fest. But to me, his response was a flag — a big red flag with “teachable moment” written all over it.

Zoom ahead several years to a graduate-level class about “otherness” at the New School for Social Research in New York. One Monday evening, our discussion turned to multiculturalism, terminology, and political correctness in schools. The question on the horseshoe-shaped table was does the term “multicultural” actually impede our ability to connect with “the other” in our lives?

As a teacher-turned-graduate student, I listened intently to my classmates sound off on the hot button issues: multiculturalism is inappropriately associated with racial diversity, given the fact that the two are very different concepts. “Diversity Day” and “Multicultural Month” too neatly divide from the rest of a classroom’s curriculum the fact of diversity. Schools should abolish programs devoted to multicultural awareness and instead, simply be diverse institutions. Terms used in schools should reflect the latest in social thought, otherwise how can we raise kids who will become conscious and sensitive adults?

When I became a schoolteacher in 2001, multiculturalism and diversity curricula were considered good things. Multicultural activities and books were part of the curriculum. Diversity coordinators were being hired in many of the private schools, and teachers were applying to attend national conferences on diversity. The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) offered Diversity Leadership Awards each year.

But now, in graduate school, I listened to my classmates (much younger than me, just out of college, and with no teaching experience) and wondered about their thoughts. I didn’t necessarily disagree with them. My classmates, however, were demonstrating a typical problem. In graduate school classrooms, think tanks, non-profit organizations, and government offices, issues like diversity in schools are debated all the time. New terminology replaces the old, things become politically correct or incorrect, theorists publish controversial articles, minority group representatives speak about rights on the evening news, and social movements sweep along. We adults absorb the latest in what we should and should not to say.

Teachers try to stay updated. But could I have kept my eight-year-old students aware of the changing thought about, say, the issue of how to refer to American Indians? Aware enough so that in that one moment in time — the Halloween costume remark — we all would spew the most fashionable term?

A glimpse into the classroom

Though private and public efforts to jazz up schools do make a difference in keeping classrooms and curricula up-to-date, many classrooms — and I’ll speak only of my experience in two Manhattan private schools here — are a little bit like museums of childhood. Mine certainly were. It starts with the stuff you can still find in classrooms. A tinkerer like me might like to grind the old pencil sharpener, with lead marks dating back forty years. (We had an electric sharpener, too, but it broke far more often than the grinder type did). A book collector could pore over yellowed copies of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Winnie-the-Pooh. Who can deny the charm of framed children’s drawings whose creators are now middle-aged?

Then again, picture the classroom as a landfill. Many classrooms are stuffed with musty piles of papers. Chipped paint reveals layers of unfashionable color choices, as if you could peel back each one and reveal the philosophy of the day on the walls. If you hunt, you can still find a slide rule or a USSR picture book. Some classrooms are just not cutting edge, regardless of what the admissions brochures say. Ideas and the materials used to teach them, for better or worse, tend to endure through generations.

The age of things extends to ideas, of course. Lesson plans that worked are recopied, while lesson plans that didn’t are filed into three-ring binders and kept for reference. If there’s a binder for “Diversity Day,” it gets recycled year after year. My classroom was chock-full of evidence of the greatest ongoing education experiment: trial and error. Like a museum (or a garbage dump), a classroom encapsulates nuggets of human thought.

It’s not that the curriculum is totally immune to the changes “out there.” In fact, like vaults run by pack rats, classrooms serve as the perfect repository for the ideological debris of political campaigns and social movements. What starts as dialogue or dissent in think tanks and graduate classrooms is inevitably dumped into teachers’ laps along with the immediate events of the day. Teachers must marry the politically correct, culturally sensitive world with the violent, offensive world, and translate the result into a civically and environmentally responsible yet age-appropriate curriculum.

Consider the teacher’s task after hurricane Katrina, or during last fall’s election, when Martin Luther King’s image could be viewed regularly on the news and the name Lincoln was dropped into more conversations than I can recall in recent history. Consider the teacher’s task on September 11, 2001. That, in fact, was my fourth day of teaching: streams of soot-covered office workers filing past the school, panicked parents trying to push their way upstairs to collect their kids and take them home, the head of my division explaining to students that “bad things happened to America today, but you are all safe.”

Again and again, new worksheets are created, new lesson plans put into place, new safety plans written, new “current events” times carved into the school day.

The questions at hand

So when my student said, “I’m going as an Indian,” what should I have done? My graduate classmates might have offered multiple choices: Remind him that a recent trend is to use the term “Native American”; explain that an even more recent trend is a backlash against the label “Native American,” against labeling at all; tell the boy he ought to use the officially recognized term “American Indian,” but compliment him for getting it close; use the moment to explain that dressing up for Halloween as an ethnic or racial identity instead of as a mouse or a pumpkin could be considered offensive, because reducing said identity to costume pieces perpetuates negative stereotypes. I did work through several options in that moment in 2002, but by the time I was ready with a response, the boy was long gone, off to the book nook where, I can imagine now, he pulled The Indian in the Cupboard from the shelf.

But I was new to teaching then. I have quicker reflexes now.

What am I getting at? Something I wish I had gotten at with my graduate classmates. That teaching is already a difficult job. Keeping eight-year-olds up-to-date on the political and social changes in our world, contextualizing those changes for them from the previous status quo, as politically incorrect as it may have been, and creating anew each day a curriculum that matches the latest in current events? We do our best.

I sat down with two teaching buddies who still work with the elementary school set and asked them about politically correct terminology. I’ll call them Scott and Amanda. Both work in private schools in Manhattan, both have graduate degrees in the field of education, and both were eager to discuss how, as teachers, they handle changing thought on race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality.

“Would it faze you if a child said, ‘I’m going to be an Indian for Halloween’?”

“Deep inside, I’m feeling, uh-oh. This could end up being very stereotypical,” said Scott. “It raises questions of what representations on Halloween are inappropriate.”

Scott’s school allows costumes on Halloween, though within reason. Students are sometimes pulled aside and asked to alter details of their dress — I remember the debate over a fake cigar, complete with burning end, one year. Amanda’s school has a no-costume policy, though parents provide candy parties in the decorated classrooms.

“I think I would ask the student about his costume,” said Amanda. “Like, what are the things we learned about Native Americans that you incorporated into your costume?”

“So a gentle change of term?” I asked.

“I actually use the terms ‘Native American’ and ‘Indian’ interchangeably,” said Scott. “I think it’s important to understand the history of the words.”

In the moment the student told me he was “going as an Indian,” I didn’t know the history of the words, nor was I up-to-date on the latest best term choice. So I did what I always tell my students to do: I researched.

A brief history of names

It appears that when Christopher Columbus hit land and was hit with the urge to do what all explorers do — name things — he might have had one of two thoughts. Either he rejoiced, “We made it to the East Indies, or India, or somewhere over yonder! Check out the Indians!” (Sarcasm mine.) Or, improbably, he mused, “These spiritual people are with God, with Dios.” That seems like a long shot to me, and I could not find any sources to back it up save for some hobby historians writing about it on the Internet.

Either way, or for some other reason that never seems to have made it into our history books, the label “Indios,” and then “Indian,” was attached to Seminole, Pequot, and Sioux alike. “Indian” became the catchall word for anyone explorers and settlers met along their journey. It gained recognition worldwide, and some languages even adopted new words to differentiate between Indians of the Americas and Indians of India.

Then came the 1960s. Indians, along with non-Indian supporters, voiced objections to the term they’d been labeled with for centuries. Aside from the fact that it could have been a colossal geographical mistake by Columbus, the term “Indian” had become a bit of a joke. The dawn of film and cheap plastic toys had given Indians a bad name. Cowboys and Indians were so strongly made representative of good and evil, civilization and savagery, respectively, that many people believed the only way to erase the stereotype was to erase the name.

Thus Indians were reborn again, this time as “Native Americans.” “Native” because their ancestors were here before anyone else, and “American” for obvious reasons. Sensitive anthropologists informed the government of this new label, and the government promptly absorbed it into its classification system.

The term “Native American,” however, provoked some questions of logic. What makes a person native? Birth? If so, there’s a whole bunch of us in a big happy native, if not Native American, family. And “American,” like “Indian” before it, supplanted the beloved tribal names that existed long before Vespucci did.

By the 1980s, many acknowledged they preferred the old way. But the term “Native American” has nonetheless stuck around, to the dismay of some. Comic George Carlin bites at the “pussified, trendy bullshit phrase.” Cherokee writer Christina Berry requests that “Indian” be used but with contextual sensitivity (avoid the worst: “Injun” and “redskin”). Lakota activist Russell Means wants his people to call themselves “any damn thing we choose” and refuses to be classified as “Native American.”

In addition to “Native American,” the vast machinery of label production has spit out “Original Americans,” “Indigenous Americans,” “Amerindians,” “First Americans,” “First Nations,” and “Aboriginal Peoples,” to name but a few. The vast machinery of academic and activist opposition has spit back a reproach for each one, though you can’t completely fault those who try out “Native American Indian” or “Aboriginal American Natives” in a misguided attempt to get it right at both ends.

The U.S. government officially uses the term “American Indian,” while the Canadian government has adopted the term “First Nations” in place of “Indian” and lists the name under the umbrella term “Aboriginals.” The term “Indigenous Peoples” encompasses a wide range of tribes in Mexico and Central and South America.

When I sort through the often contradictory materials, the phrase that comes to my mind is political scientist Walter Connor’s “terminological chaos.” And this chaos is faithfully documented by the caretakers of education, in the filing cabinets and on the bookshelves of American classrooms.

Meanwhile, back in the classroom

Both Scott and Amanda teach social studies curricula that rely heavily on the heritage of the American Indians. November is both National American Indian Month and Alaska Native Heritage Month, and much of the commemorative excitement plays out in their classrooms. Scott’s school invites the Red Hawk Council Dancers every year, who, if I remember correctly, explain to students that what they have seen of American Indians in the movies isn’t always true. Scott also takes his students to the Museum of the American Indian. They don’t know the museum is one among many getting heat for not returning Indian artifacts to the tribes who claim them.

A bulletin board announces “Native Americans!” in bright red punch-out letters and is tacked full of “indigenous artwork.” I remember devoting a stretch of wall to the “False Face Society,” lined with Iroquois-inspired masks made of paper and markers, only to learn that I may have been making a major cultural intrusion by allowing my students to create their own false faces. For a long time, I reminded my students to walk “Indian file” (one behind the other) and sit “Indian style” (knees bent, legs cross), because I had grown up with these terms. I grew out of them, however, and started to say simply “single-file” and “cross-legged.”

Amanda reads The Indian in the Cupboard to her students.

“Do you adjust the term as you read?” I asked.

“No. The books are dated and are still in the classrooms,” said Amanda. “People don’t get brand new materials with the latest political material in them. They’re not interested in the idea that there’s a controversy over a name.”

Amanda said that even in middle school history classrooms, where her husband teaches, “Half the books say one thing, half the books say the other.”

There are a few resources a teacher might use to make sense of the terminological changes for his or her students. In 2002, a book called Contentious Issues by Márianna Csóti appeared in the United States. It’s a book about big ideas for little kids, as the title suggests. One section of this stereotype-destruction manual reads like a laundry list of terms you can use to get beat up at a bar: “Paddy, Paki, Sambo, Spade, Spick/spic, Spook, Taffy, Wog, Wop.” What comes between “Paki” and “Sambo” is “Red Indian,” an archaic British phrase that is still used by some to distinguish between American Indians and Indians from India. Many condemn the term as disparaging on the basis of race, and others wonder why black and white remained okay whereas red and yellow fell into disrepute. Csóti encourages adults to be clear with children about terms. “Red Indian” is racist, “Indian” is politically incorrect, “Native American” is “not wholly acceptable,” and the child’s best bet is to go with “Indigenous.”

I can only imagine what reaction the book would receive in my graduate school classrooms. Outrageously offensive? Possibly harmful, feeding the fire by putting words in kids’ mouths? Perpetuating a classroom environment in which difference is too starkly highlighted? Politically incorrect?

To me, it’s a saving grace kind of book, something to help put all the rapidly changing thought into one place. I asked my teaching friends about it.

“I have an increasing apathy toward political correctness,” Scott told me. “There’s always something new. I want to understand and be compassionate and considerate, but in the end, it’s about the values you project as a teacher.”

Scott was faced with a teachable moment himself when reading Runaway to Freedom by Barbara Smucker with his students.

“The book used ‘nigger’ quite often,” Scott said.

Runaway to Freedom is a historical fiction novel geared toward kids in the nine- to twelve-years category, and it reveals, in context, how the word “nigger” was used in the nineteenth century.

Scott continued. “I asked my students, ‘Do you all feel comfortable going on with this? We have until tomorrow to decide if we’re all comfortable. Go home and talk about it. If anyone has any concerns, let me know.’ I checked in with the administrator, too.”

In the end, Scott’s administrator approved, and his students decided it was okay, that they would learn about the word in context.

“I was actually really moved by the book, but it was hard to read,” said Scott. “We agreed we wouldn’t actually say the word, we would just say ‘N.’ The kids took it very seriously.”

“It’s about teachers with good intentions who want to do the right thing,” said Amanda. “You can’t shield students from the idea that bad words exist, or that there are really ugly moments in American history.”

“In the end, the lessons you’re teaching — about different cultures and the history of a place — are about understanding the humanness of things,” she added. “They’re about building understanding for otherness.”