Lately I've had people write to me and ask if China suddenly got boring, because I haven't posted on the blog in a while. The thing is, I've been too busy with general ridiculousness here to sit down and write. For that I'm sorry.
A brief run-down of major events since the Zhangjiajie trip:
- My family visited from March 27 to April 5. We spent the first 6 days touring Beijing with hired private tour guides, and enjoyed some pretty nice weather. We hit the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, Summer Palace, Lama Temple, Olympic Village, a hutong tour, and a great Beijing duck dinner.
- We spent the second weekend of their visit in Shanghai, with a day trip to the water village of Suzhou (Shanghai was very cool despite the fact that I had already been there; Suzhou we probably could have done without).
- Last weekend we resumed the interesting adventures of Michael Chapman, as within the span of 4 days we saw a "Sparknotes" version of Beijing Opera, visited Xinyuan's small apartment for a dumpling dinner, and took one last hutong tour on the way to some of Beijing's best duck.
- We've studied for finals and wrote papers. As I write this on Tuesday afternoon, 1 of my 2 finals is done, and I've completed 2 of my 3 papers (I'm not complaining).
At the end of the week, we'll all be leaving Beijing and splitting onto two trips that will travel through inland China. The stops on our trip will include:
Luoyang
Xi'an
Chengdu
Guilin
Longsheng
Yangshou
You can't be blamed if you haven't heard of any of these except Xi'an.
Pondering our final days here in Beijing is a strange mix of emotions. I don't want to speak for everyone in the program, because I know that there are differing attitudes, but I feel like the majority of us are sad to go. Most seem fine with the idea of going to America, to the comforts of home and to a land where we can communicate with just about everyone. I'll say that as much as anything, I'm heartbroken at having to leave the wonderful people I've met in the program, most of which I won't be seeing again... we have the strange bond of having been pretty much the only people with which each other could clearly communicate for the last 3 months.
At the same time, I've developed a real respect and passion for the Chinese people.
Last week I was heading back to Beida in a cab by myself after visiting my family at their hotel in Wangfujing, across town. It was late, and the main roads through central Beijing were nearly empty. My cabdriver was an old guy, missing a few teeth like most elderly people in this country. I sat in the backseat, which most Chinese people don't do when riding solo in a cab (a professor told me that it's a cultural difference; in the US, the cabbie is serving his customer, whereas in China the driver and passenger are equals). The driver and I exchanged some small talk, and he repeatedly smiled and complimented my Chinese (I was on my game that night). He asked if I spoke English, and seemed sad when he told me that he himself couldn't. After a few minutes chatting, I leaned against the window and watched the lights of Beijing's north side fly by. Just as I was about to doze off, I saw him fiddling with his radio, as if he weren't quite sure how to use it. Eventually, he found the station he was looking for, and went back to focusing on the empty elevated freeway in front of him. That's when I realized that I wasn't hearing the normal Chinese talk-radio banter that plays in nearly very cab; I was listening to Carson Daly interviewing Jennifer Aniston, in English. Real, American English! I don't particularly care about either of those individuals, and am certainly not a fan of the watered-down American pop music that started playing soon after. Yet knowing that this poor cabdriver, alone and on the road during the middle of a Monday night, without knowing a word of English, had thought I might like to hear American radio was incredible. He looked up into his rearview and gave a toothless grin, asking if I liked it. I'll save the "we're all human - grand revelation" monologue for someone much better equipped to write it, but in that moment I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a lump in my throat. For all of us in this program, China's a part of us now. And while our nations are going to be on opposite sides of most arguments throughout our lifetimes, there's no denying the emotional ties that we've made here.
