Can I get an Amen?

With the approach and onset of this year's holiday season, I will admit to feeling the distance from home a little more than I have thus far. I've never been away from home for Christmas in particular, and though I will be lucky enough to spend it with my parents even here in Tongliao, it's certainly still not the same. Moreover, even 4+ months into time here, my situation here continues to evolve...not always to my pleasure. I credit culture shock with at least some of it, if not all, so my own reaction to my recent bouts of funkitude (that's short for "funky attitude," for those of you not fluent in Diana-Speak) and feeling down is to put it all in perspective and try to find something positive on which to focus my energy. My Dad, however, had another suggestion, which he was kind enough to outline in (gratuitous) detail in his latest email to me. I've copied it below, having given in to the fact that whatever I set out to write in my blog today would have certainly paled in comparison to my erudite father's sage advice, so articulately composed as follows:

Hey Keedo,

Sorry for your touch of “holiday blues.” I gather you are over your cold/flu and feeling a lot better since the email below contains no groans or physical complaints.

I started with the idea to provide you with fatherly advice, encouraging you to write more/keep a journal, blah blah, but you know all that stuff. And anyway, I took a look at your more recent blog postings, and you’re certainly continuing in that medium. (Though I notice there is nothing about your fabulous trip to Tokyo!) Note from Diana: Ok, I'm busted, but I'll get to it eventually...

You could edit your blogs into chapters for your new, soon-to-be-published, best-selling, reveal-all, memoirs of your life behind the Iron Curtain (does your generation even know the term?), sacrificing your youth for the benefit of a more literate China.

Another slant might be how you helped bring about China’s worldwide economic superiority, assisting them in their ambition to dominate the world (with their unique “Love Mao/Get Rich by any means” approach) by teaching China’s future leaders and business wo/men how to lure stupid Westerners into a (false) sense of security, since the dumb Americans-in-particular always trust foreigners who can speak perfect English with no accent! You’ll sell millions of copies to rednecks and evangelicals, without doing any damage, because they already believe all that shit anyway.

If you were to repent, convert, and do the “Testimony Circuit” you’d have a living for life. You would, of course, have to bleach and tease your hair, wear lots of dark red lipstick and enough mascara to weight your eyelids down to half-mast, and get yourself a few nice full skirts and crinolines for underneath, but no patent leather shoes, because you never know what nasty little boys will be able to see in the refection. You would spend every day but Sundays and Wednesdays on your bus, emblazoned with your new ID/Logo, “Deeana Deevyne” driving through the South and the Corn Belt, making whistle stops and kissing babies (but no Chinese). You would probably pork up a bit, as fried chicken every Sunday, along with potlucks in the church basements every Sunday and Wednesday night can do that to a girl.

China sound a little better now?

Love, DAD