Chris In China

On its branch 6 feet from the ground, it appeared lonely and neglected, surrounded by anemic vegetation clinging to the side of a rust-stained edifice that marked the barrier of a small backyard in an apartment block near the campus. Although it was small and hidden, it somehow managed to grab my attention with its pale purple pedals, and with the sweetness of its fragrance.
A man stood nearby examining me with a puzzled look.
“Is this your flowers?” I asked in Chinese.
“Yes, my flowers,” he replied.
I wanted to tell him they smelled great, they smelled like home, but all I could muster was, “We have them in America, too.”
He didn’t know that, he said.
I once learned in a neuroscience class that the sense of smell has the strongest relationship among the senses to memory. Odorants enter the nose as chemicals in the air, and are captured by extremely sensitive nerve fibers called cilia.
The odor particles are absorbed and then synthesized into information in a part of the brain called the olfactory cortex, which is (perhaps deliberately) located directly next to the hippocampus and amygdala, both important components involved with memories. That is why familiar smells usually remind us of someone, somewhere, someplace or sometime.
As the distinct, heavenly smell of this particular lilac saturated the tiny hairs in my nasal cavity, I was transported to a mild, late spring evening seven years ago. I was cruising along a back road in New Hampshire in a small Japanese sports car, with the moon roof open allowing the lunar glow to bathe my dashboard with its radiance. There was something good on the radio, and in that moment I felt like there was nothing more I would ever want or need in the whole world. It was a moment of pure bliss.
This memory triggered a feeling of homesickness, and after the initial shock of discovering this familiar bush in China passed, I was surprised with what I felt.
Eight months of new experiences (food, culture, language, people, laws, weather, history and new plants, animals and flowers) have allowed me to succeed in staving off homesickness. The time has felt suspended, like I pressed the pause button on the VCR to go to the bathroom.
But the physical reminder of home the lilac represented jarred me into the realization that time constantly moves forward. Spring is here, and it has arrived on the other side of the world, too. Am I missing something by being here and not there?
Undoubtedly, yes, I am missing some things: the closing of my favorite restaurant, 55 Main, in North Adams, the graduations of friends from MCLA, the birth of a close friend’s baby and an entire year’s worth of birthdays. These are important events, and I am sorry to be missing them, but at least I know about them. I can keep up with these things through correspondence and photographs.
But I am missing things that people cannot tell me about, like the dirty snow piles turning into cold streams, the fresh buds of maple trees, and that first warm day when the sun shines brightly on bare skin that has gone through an entire winter being covered with thick layers of clothing.
I hate to miss all that, but I only have to reflect for a moment on the unique experiences the spring brings in China.
The holidays, for example — Chinese holidays around this time of year are truly interesting.
Spring Festival, marked by the lunar New Year, is the most important holiday of the year. It’s a time for families to reconnect, eat buckets of dumplings and light off fireworks by the truckload. The lantern festival 15 days later is very similar.
The Chinese also had the “Day Bright” festival, also known as “Grave Sweeping Day,” a day in which people visit the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects, plant new flora and do a little spring cleaning.
I am very fortunate to have the ability to witness those traditions firsthand, and if I were not spending the spring in China, I would have no clue about the importance of such events.
And, although the plants and flowers are different than those at home, they are no less beautiful.
In a park near the university blooms trees such as the brilliantly pink flowering Prunus tribola, known as the rose trees of China, the immaculately white Prunus yedoenis (Yoshino cherry tree), and more than a few large-budded Malus micromalus (Kaido crabapple tree). They are stunning to look at and very fragrant.
I cannot forget to mention the dust storms. How unique and special those are! The sandy loess and coal dust particles whipping through the city streets driven by heavy gusts of wind are a sure sign that spring has arrived in this part of China.
While the differences between a Berkshire spring and a Hebei Province spring are many, they share a special connection. After all, spring is spring, and time moves on at the same speed there as it does over here. Everywhere, the seasons change, new growth emerges and people continue to live their lives. There’s something remarkable about that.
I look forward to the day I’ll be riding my bike along some back road in Berkshire County and come across a lilac tree. When I stop to take a whiff, maybe my amygdala will remember this wonderful spring in China instead of some Japanese sports car.

Chris Gauthier is a recent Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts graduate spending a year in China teaching English at Hebei University. He writes regular columns for The Advocate during his stay in China. To read all of his Advocate columns, visit blogtheberkshires.com. Readers can also read more about his experiences on his own blog at chrisinchina.wordpress.com.