" She-nan-i-gan | shəˈnanəgənz |
plural noun | informal
- Eccentric and high-spirited activity, behavior or venture;
mischief "
Well, a shenanigan it certainly is. If someone... anyone... a curbside prophet, a wrinkled-as-a-walnut fortune-teller, or even my own mother... had told me a year ago that today I’d call Beijing my home, I’d probably have burst out laughing. I’m a sixteen-year-old girl who hails... well... hailed from a small magical peninsula by the sea. Some of you may know it as Palos Verdes. Good old PV. A beautiful bubble of safety and mollycoddled childhoods, complete with ponies and gated castle-communities, boasting views of a kingdom otherwise known as Los Angeles.
Uh, Beijing?
For nine months?
Let's just say I'm still pinching myself.
Some would say that if I were in my right mind, I would be sitting underneath unwavering, fluorescent, classroom lights, letting the voices of academia “enlighten” my childhood away. Thank God (truly!) that I was blessed with an Alice-like desire to forever chase the white rabbit out and away from the bonds of normalcy. To chase it right into the midst of adventures, shenanigans, that I previously would have considered inconceivable. That’s where the Spirit part comes in.
None of this would have been possible, feasible, barely imaginable… without the Spirit… His beautiful, powerful, passionate and playful Spirit. The same white-tailed Spirit which lifted a clock to my ear, nudged me forward, and forced me to jump with faith down a hole, a fissure in the day-to-day systems of my previous life. The rabbit hole (which can also be called an escape route) has led me farther down and around than I ever expected to go… but to Wonderland it certainly brought me.
Only... my wonderland happens to be a place where noodles are a breakfast food... car horns are a means of conversation... dusts act as a city-wide epidermis... kung-fu can be done in your living-room... charades is my second languages... dead geckos fall from the sky... blondness is an oddity... random is a lifestyle...
and God is the only thing that matters.
Welcome to my wonderland.
Welcome… to China.
Welcome… to China.
