Eat Bitter

 It was 7:30 a.m. on an October morning and I was drinking tea, waiting to see whether Taishi would come down in time to catch the bus to his school. He seemed a bit cavalier about class attendance. The steam rose as I poured myself another cup. The sun was about to come over the mountain, rising further south on the horizon every day. It was cold around the edges, and the low angle of the light tinged everything with magic. A crow called. The night before I had gotten up to see the crisp, clear moon and listen to the coyotes crying back and forth.

Taishi came down, and I poured his coffee. My husband and I didn’t drink it, but for Taishi I ground beans and did a fragrant pour-over. “Especially today I can’t skip,” he said. He had a presentation on the movie “Rain Man” to give to his class. He told us his English ability was minimal on his arrival in the U.S., but he was eager to talk and took advantage of his opportunities. By now we all understood each other.

Taishi, from Japan, was a student at the English Language School at Dominican University nearby. We had been hosting students for several years, learning as much from them as they did from us. They came from China, Japan, Columbia and Brazil. There is no better way to get to know someone’s inner life than to invite them to live with you in your home!

The school was set up in a series of class levels which students tested out of as their English improved. If they passed Level 9, colleges in the United States would accept them. A “home stay” accommodation such as ours provided a room and two meals a day, plus conversation. Students used public transportation and bicycles to get around. They made friends with each other and shared resources. Almost every student we had managed to get to Las Vegas, the apotheosis of the U.S., one way or another.

Taishi told me later that he was disappointed to see students looking at their cell phones while he gave his talk. He had lost his father at age three, feeling lonely and longing for male mentors ever since. His mother had worked hard to provide for him and his sisters. He was enterprising, however, moving to New York to complete his ELS courses.

Though the students must have had money to be able to afford the school and accommodation fees, they did not seem more privileged than the kids we knew. At least two of them had been unhappy in a previous home stay, being treated as a purely economic entity. We welcomed them into our family, sharing outings and social lives freely.

Even before inviting students into our home, I had been fascinated by the Dominican students. Befriending Sanae from Japan when we met repetitively at the bus stop resulted in her turning to Don and I when she wanted to get married. Because her boyfriend was from Taiwan, their parents told them they should get married in the U.S. to avoid complications in their own countries. Don got permission from the county to be a Justice of the Peace for a day and married them! Learning to say “I now pronounce you man and wife” in both Mandarin and Japanese elicited much approval from the flock of students at the wedding.

We assumed the students had strong family relationships, but were surprised to find their struggles not far off our own. Silvia, only 15 when she came from Wenzhou, China, was an only child with a strong sense of Chinese history and a great ability to draw anime characters. She had grown up fast as her parents left her to her own devices, even leaving her alone at age 12 in a high rise apartment for a month, while they went to Italy. Rina, from Japan, loved boy bands and lived for big stadium shows. Her parents drank and locked her in a closet when she was little. Juan Carlos, from Columbia, wanted to be the playboy of the Western world. His mother provided him money to stay away from home and her endless feuds with his father. Returning from a visit to Columbia, he brought us coffee samples and hormigas de culo grande (big ass ants) to try!

When I found the phrase, “Eat bitter, rise above other men,” in a book on Chinese literature, Silvia told me, “I have heard this all my life. ‘Eat the bitterest of the bitter first, and everything will then taste sweet.’” It was a poignant comment on the lives of these students.

The students also had interesting perspectives on us! As Hoo Jung, from South Korea, looked out the window of the van driving through San Francisco from the airport, he wondered whether there were guns in all the houses he passed. Students from Brazil were amazed it was safe enough to walk around, that we didn’t drive with our windows rolled up for fear of robbery. Yuki from Tokyo was fascinated by a squirrel on the grounds of our townhouse. All were thrilled by the deer which paraded back and forth on the path beneath their bedroom window, come down from the San Pedro mountain open space behind our house to find water.

After a few years of students, since we still had more house than we needed, we took in renters, and then Airbnb guests. We no longer provided meals, but sharing a refrigerator is still an intimate act! The longer people stayed the more memorable they were. Several young people had internships in our area, staying for months. There was occasional unpleasantness, but by and large there was no breakage and the number of our silver teaspoons remained intact.

An optimistic sort, I generally assume the best of people upon meeting them. According to Martin Luther’s interpretation of the Eighth commandment in his small catechism, when we meet our neighbor we are to “defend him, speak well of him, and put the best possible construction on all that he does.” Listening to what people tell us, imagining ourselves in their shoes, enables us to do this. No matter where they come from, it is deeply interesting to get below the outward presentations people make of themselves and find the humanity beneath every skin.