Fieldwork Connections: The Fabric of Ethnographic Collaboration in China and America

16. Seattle First Free Methodist Church, 1996–97

16 SEATTLE FIRST FREE METHODIST CHURCH, 1996–97 bamo ayi “ N ow we’re going to Queen Anne, to see a landlady called Amber. Amber is a single woman, a member of a Protestant church.” It was the third day after my arrival in Seattle. Professor Harrell was explaining things to me while driving the van he had purchased especially to take his Chinese friends around. We were looking at rooms for rent. In September 1996, through Professor Harrell’s nomination, I had been fortunate to receive support from the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China and the China Studies Program of the University of Washington to come to the anthropology department at the University, then chaired by Professor Harrell, as a visiting scholar for one year. Even though my primary motive for coming to America was to conduct research with Professor Harrell on bilingual education and Nuosu-language textbooks used in Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan and to audit Chinese culture and comparative religion classes at the UW, part of my goal was to better understand American churches and their members. Of course, the best way to understand religion would be to live in a church member’s home. So two months before I came to America, I asked Steve to help me find a landlord who was a church member. 225 A few days later I moved to Queen Anne and became Amber’s tenant . My American home was the attic room of a gray house, a spacious bedroom with an entryway. On the windowsill, a flowering plant whose name I couldn’t recall gave oª a sweet fragrance. On the wall next to the window hung an old Chinese landscape painting. There was a finely worked paperweight on the desk, whose design resembled an old Chinese “hundred child picture,” showing children in Chinese-style silk clothing playing. I felt a ripple of warmth, and also a bit of puzzlement: Where had Amber gotten ahold of these Chinese things? It looked like the landlady had put some real thought toward welcoming her tenant from China. “Ayi, dinner!” came Amber’s voice from the corridor. “Let’s say a prayer,” Amber said, after her son Jason and I sat down at the table. Watching Amber beside me out of the corner of my eye, I could see her sitting up straight, both eyes closed, saying grace before the meal. I sat as if fixed in place by the somber atmosphere, and didn’t dare move, didn’t even dare exhale, but inside I was completely satisfied, inwardly celebrating my choice of landlady and my choice not only to live in one of her rooms and eat the food she cooked but also to become her companion. Even eating had its religious aspect. I perked up my ears and listened to Amber’s soft but clear recitation. She was thanking God, thanking God for bringing Ayi into her life, thanking God for the abundant food. I peeked at Jason across the table; he appeared wooden, unmoving. I guessed that he might be saying a silent prayer. There are many kinds of prayers, some spoken and some silent. On my first day in Amber’s house, I had already begun my American fieldwork. Amber was fifty-three years old, and had been divorced from her husband for five years. She had a pair of children. Her son Jason was thirtythree , unmarried, and worked in an old car restoration shop; he paid monthly rent just like me. Her daughter Gwendolyn, not yet thirty, was a construction worker and a single mother; she lived with her twelveyear -old daughter Katrina in a rented house. Amber worked two jobs: She cooked and found shelter for the homeless at Operation Nightwatch ,andcookedlunchinapublicelementaryschoolcafeteria.Herearnings from the two jobs were still not su‹cient for her, and rent was 226 bamo ayi undoubtedly an important part of her monthly income. I hadn’t been living at Amber’s very long when her old friend Cheryl also moved in and became another paying tenant. Before I had moved into Amber’s house, Steve had spoken to her about his hope that she would help me to learn about religion, but wouldn’t try to get me to join her church; he had told her that my interest was strictly in research. Steve had shown considerable foresight in announcing this publicly and bringing...