Deep Thoughts on Cliff Jumping

If someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you? What if everyone you knew told you to jump, would you then? What if everyone you knew and everyone you didn't know was 100% convinced you needed to jump off the cliff? What if you were completely new in town, could only barely understand what they were saying but could grasp that they had all jumped off and were very confident in their recommendation that jumping was right for you - not only right for you but ESSENTIAL for your KIDS. On what grounds would you opt OUT of cliff jumping? How would you respond to the scoffs that clearly you didn't know much about cliffs, certainly not THIS cliff, because jumping off it was the only sensible choice and all other options amounted to failure?

As it turns out, I learned about myself that given the circumstances, I would strongly consider cliff jumping.

Here we are in Taiwan and everyone is curious what we are doing here. Because it IS unheard of that a family would take a 4 month vacation - no job expediency, no calling, no relatives, no specific objectives. So the answer that we are here to live life and learn more about living life is beyond comprehension, or maybe it just requires more Chinese than I currently posses. Or perhaps my Chinese IS adequate but the answer is so unfathomable that people assume they don't get it because of a communication barrier (like people from China assuming my tones are wrong when the same tones coming out of a Chinese face would just be heard as a Taiwanese accent).

So I thought I'd keep things simple and began telling people we'd come for the kids to learn Chinese. In fact, that is a major hope. And that's when all the cliff jumping suggestions came. Only it wasn't cliff jumping but getting the kids in school.

I don't mean to compare sending the kids to school is like killing them. In fact, if the right circumstances should present themselves, we would be very open to school or cliff jumping! The overwhelming, abundant advice from ward members and perfect strangers has been: get the kids in Chinese school or they will never learn Chinese. So, for weeks the fact that we could not find the right circumstances was down right depressing. I began to think that the trip was a bust - that the end of it all we would be failure.

By a gift of the spirit, I am sure, it suddenly was brought to my mind that we are not everyone else. Why this fact should become blurry here in Asia where we stick out like sore thumbs and are referred to as outsiders, is beyond me. Home in our safe Utah, I am quite skilled at ignoring pretty much everyone and simply doing what I think is best. I remembered that fact too, and thought I'd get back to the practice of it.

Immediately the cloud of discouragement and dread lifted. Not only did I have renewed energy to continue to attempt to teach the kids myself, but I also felt a new hope that if the right school circumstances were out there, we WOULD find them. I remembered that Chinese IS NOT the main priority to us. If it WERE, they would already be in perfectly good, free, and available PUBLIC immersion schools in Utah. Furthermore, while we have a hope that the kids learn Chinese, I have in no way sensed it is essential in any of their future lives. I DID sense this trip was. Of course, what I sense can be wrong, and I may misunderstand the why's behind many of my promptings. Even so, living life according to the dictates of my own conscience has proved a FAR happier way to go.

I can hardly imagine the unpleasantness others may feel, constantly living under the weight of the should's of well-meaning family and even strangers. We are NOT, in fact, anyone but us. That this country, or anywhere on the face of the earth, is filled with free advice, and even when ALL the advice sounds the same, it still does not make it GOOD advice. A cliff jump, no matter how many times it is suggested, may still not be the right move. Though completely obvious, oh, how these were wonderful things to remember!