Kui's Blog 6: Coming Home to Reality
Blog 6: Coming Home to Reality
Leaving China was probably one of the saddest days I have had to deal with. I wasn’t ready to leave yet, but at the same time, I had to go back to my responsibilities of being a student, employee, teammate, daughter, and friend to those I had left behind. The final days of my stay in China were more bitter than sweet, and more tears than smiles. You could tell on the look of my classmates faces that we were all going to miss each other very much. Then again, that’s just how the cookie had to crumble.
So the final days were spent all together. Our final dinner was at the first place we had our formal dinner in Qinhuangdao. Everyone was included in the toast, along with the many events that have taken place and the many sites that we saw that were really funny, awkward, or amazing. This toast took about a good half hour. With our glasses raised, we all agreed that this was in fact an unforgettable trip.
The morning after our final dinner, was our last class together. We reviewed how to buy tickets to travel either on a bus or train, how we would reserve our hotel rooms if we were staying for a few more days, and how to travel to the airport. Zhan Laoshi’s older nephew, along with two other friends, came to teach us the art of calligraphy and the art of painting pictures Chinese style. It was really cool, and all of us had the opportunity to try out the different calligraphy styles with their guidance. We all took home our names in calligraphy, and some of us took home poems. Calligraphy is a serious art in Chinese culture, and all students learn how to write in calligraphy when they are young students.
Most of our class decided to go and eat at the street venders one last time together, where we ate almost 200 dumplings between 10 of us. As we sat down to eat, the Backstreet Boys’ song ‘I Want It That Way’ came on (and yes, it was in Chinese). We all started to sing to each other, and the Chinese people walking by us either started to chuckle or stare at us.
A few of us left the following day by train back to Beijing. We all did some last minute shopping at the Olympic Store, and some last minute photos with Chinese tourists who thought we looked pretty cool. We decided to eat at our favorite duck place for dinner downtown, and enjoy the best cooked duck in the world before we left China. We saw a few Google workers eating behind us…which we thought was pretty cool. How did we know? Well, for starters some had Google polo shirts or bags, and they looked like a bunch of nerds (hey! Sounds pretty familiar…eh?).
Well, I finally left Beijing the next day. It was a sad taxi ride to the airport with my roommate. Both of us did not want to leave China. We raced through security, since we were late. We bought some food to eat on the plane, and found out we had a 2.5hour delay due to weather. So my flight back to America was about 14 hours. I ended up in Prescott late Friday evening, and was not able to sleep until 6am that morning because I was still on China Time. My clock was all mixed up for the next few days.
After the first night of sleep, I thought I was still in China when I woke up. I wasn’t, and that was disappointing to me. There is definitely one thing that I learned from this whole China Study Abroad experience: keeping an open mind at all times and trying out new things makes the trip so much more enjoyable and exciting!