The End of My China Travels

Jack and I have made it back from Xi'an and survived two 22 hour train rides as well as getting a little lost in a strange city. We managed to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers, the Shaangxi Museum, and ride bikes around the city wall. It was a pretty fun trip and I loved spending time with Jack. Now back in Hangzhou, I have pretty much all of my belongings packed away and ready for the next trip back home. I've been so excited for this moment, and I can't really believe it's happening. It has been 5 months! I don't know where that time went and now I feel disoriented at the fact that I have a whole other life waiting for me on the other side of the world! I've missed home a lot, and until now it has just been an idea in my head. Soon it will be a reality. I have a lot I am bringing back with me and things I want to apply to my life back in the states. China has definitely been a worthwhile adventure not only because it has been fun, but because it has been difficult. I'm certainly not done with my adventures, but I am finally closing the chapter on my studies in China.

Now that I've truly lived outside of my comfort zone for a fair amount of time, I feel like I know where I'm needed and where I belong. I thought that coming to China might give me insight on how to help them resolve some their problems, but now I really realize where I need to start is right at home. Just because China isn't the U.S. doesn't mean it needs the U.S. to help it be better. They have a lot of problems, but for China to maintain it's identity they need to be resolved by the people on their own terms. With time China will come into it's own. What we can do is be a better example of what a developed country is by turning around some trends we have set in motion. China is already doing better than the states in some aspects, but they certainly aren't avoiding all of our mistakes. By following the status quo at the moment, many people are achieving a better quality of life here, but many others are still getting left behind and disenfranchised. And since China has so many people, it's on one of the largest scales ever known.

I find that life here can be summed up to one thing. Waiting in line. Everyone gathers to get what they want and what they need. Then they have to keep pushing and pushing each other to guarantee that they will get it. There is so much competition and struggle to get by in day to day life that there is no room for personal space or passive pleasantry. You either push or get pushed out of the way. Some people don't really have the ability to push back. This isn't like in the states where we are pretty much guaranteed what we need and want. Even just being an average U.S. citizen is glamorous compared to the life of average people here. WE. ARE. SPOILED. And because we have been spoiled, we think we deserve to be without really working for it or appreciating it. People here work for everything. Hopefully when I get back, I might be just a little less spoiled. I certainly appreciate what I have a lot more. I am forever changed, but only as a better Jackie, not a different one.

I So Hate Goodbyes

Today was the last day of classes for me here in China. I've been so excited about seeing my friends at home, that I let myself forget for a little while all the new people I'm saying goodbye to. I sat next to my friend Ming Dao for the last time in grammar class. In listening we all stood in front of the class and said some things to everyone. I nearly cried, even though we were all cracking jokes.

Tonight is our last class dinner and afterwards we are going to KTV. It should be a lot of fun, and hopefully I'll feel a little bit more closure. I always hate endings and I always hate goodbyes. I get like this at the end of every semester, but this is a bit different. These people I may never see again. Even if I never got terribly close with some of them, I feel an inevitable connection from just spending so much time around them. But that's just kind of life. You just get to know something and then you have to leave it behind.

Now I have two days off and a lot of studying to do. I've been really slacking off the past few days and now need to play catch up. I know I should do pretty well on the tests, but I still cant help this dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of their approach. Worry is a disease and mine is chronic.

In the end I have a few regrets, like I usually do. I always feel at the end of things like I didn't do enough, that I should have tried more, and that weighs heavy on my heart. Luckily there are always new chances that I have to look forward to. I'm really going to try not to take for granted what I have or have had.

Not much longer till....

Not much longer till classes are over! and I get to eat sweet sweet American food and see all of my dear friends! Just a little over a week of actual classes, then three tests spread out over a week, and then a week to travel with Jack to Xi An and wherever else the wind blows us. Good thing too because it is going to be difficult surviving in this heat! It is getting into the hot and wet season here, so looooooots of humidity and just grossness. I'm excited to have some free time to finish off my Chinese shopping list and see a little more of China! I'm not excited about having to leave Jack and my friend May behind. :'(

Last weekend May and I went out for a little girls night, her treat, where we ate some of the most delicious shrimp I've ever had and then had a nice relaxing foot rub. It was pretty much heavenly. We just chatted and got to know each other even better. I'm so glad I was able to meet and get close to a wonderfully sweet Chinese friend while I've been here. It can be difficult with the language and cultural barriers to actually feel close to someone and relate to them. Luckily somehow I found a kindred spirit working just as hard(if not harder) to learn English as I am Chinese :). What I am going to have to do is find some way to treat her to something special before I leave. And possibly Jack can take over tutoring her where I left off, though I think I can say her English has improved quite a bit ;).

As for my trip with Jack, I'm pretty optimistic. Ashley and Mike have already been to Xi An and had a pretty good experience. Plus we can learn from some of their mishaps on what not to do :P. Thanks for being the guinea pigs! jk. Plus we get to see the Terra Cotta soldiers for reals! I think It will be a great way to wrap up my adventures here in China and spend some quality time with Jack before I go.

For the most part, my experience here might be called mundane with highlights, but that's just kind of me. I enjoy the mundane and the exciting. The ordinary and the extraordinary. And what are the extraordinary things without the ordinary in between? I feel as if I have really gotten the feel of this place and it's people, and that is how I remember things; by their feel, not their names etc. (Which can be troublesome) I constantly observe while not necessarily putting distinctions on things. Sometimes distinguishing things makes them lose their meaning. Though sometimes I've been at odds with my surroundings, I've always managed to come back to my center and take everything for what it's worth.

Some of the things that were planned didn't happen, such as learning to roast tea and I have yet to see if the pictures will work out (sad I know). It seems they were just kind of empty promises for appearances, but that's something else I have learned. It just really proves that you need to watch out for yourself more here, which is a good life lesson. Some things that weren't planned also happened, such as meeting May, realizing a new spirituality, and getting to know myself. That is one of the greatest blessings ever.

Hiccemup Trucks

It is Saturday today and because China is weird, we have classes. We have a three day holiday mon, tues, and wed so both Saturday and Sunday morning 我们上课. The worst part is I have a big test Sunday morning as well! What the DEUCE! This is trespassing upon the sanctity of the weekend. If I were to look at this objectively, most people in China don't really have a weekend considering they don't have a "holy day" or anything like that, so I'm just experiencing another part of the culture. But you know what I think about that? WEH! Just push the stupid test to later in the week at least! The fate of the world might be at stake. I think I felt a rip in the space time continuum this morning when I woke up at 7.

-Me and my pEng yOus are qu-ing to Shanghai over break

-starting level 2 type stuff after this test

-definitely time to do laundry

-Trying to maintain motivation

-remembering Abi

-remembering home

-just 3 weeks of school and then one week of FREEDOM till I come home!

-I must study and do laundry now

Abigail MacQueen

So, I got some pretty awful news yesterday. A friend from Scotland I had met here in China passed away the other day from kidney failure. Her name was Abi and she was just outrageous, or maybe it only seemed that way because of her Scottish accent. She had just returned home and after only a little while needed to be hospitalized. Nobody really knows what caused it or if she came in contact with something while in China, but either way it just doesn't seem fair. She was so full of life and probably liked just about everyone. She taught me a little bit about letting go and having a good time. About doing your thing while you have time to do it. I'd only known her a short time, and just in time I guess. I'm glad she got back in time to be with her friends and family, and I guess we are all going to have to just live a little extra to make up for the loss. Still I wonder how these things can just happen and why to certain people. There isn't really any rhyme or reason to it. Just our ability to accept it or not.

In honor of Abi, I'll accept it and try to live my life to the fullest. And I'm still going to find a guy with an even more epic last name for her :)

The DAO

Education (Knowledge), though a necessary evil, is still a stain upon the primal soul. This is what my DAO book says. I kind of believe this is true. Of course education is a great and important thing because it lifts people out of ignorance and gets them to think for themselves, but it also can prevent you from seeing other knowledge clearly. The logic that "this is this, so this must be this" when nothing is so black and white. Also the more you know, ....the less is certain. We can be either lead to over certainty or complete distrust. I myself have experienced both extremes and think I am finally leveling out somewhere towards the middle.

At first I had complete faith that there was a way things were and should be. Then that illusion violently shattered and I completely lost faith in people and the things around me. That illusion is slowly crumbling as my personal philosophy and sensibilities mature. Life is all part of the process. You don't know something until you have lived it, and I have certainly lived quite a few things recently and while here in China. You need a good essential foundation to start from and build on. With that, though your personal structure may crumble from time to time, you will always have something left to go off of. That foundation is your primal soul. You are born with it and nothing can ever destroy it. Sometimes you just need to sweep away everything else to remember that it is there. Creation and destruction. Yin and Yang.

Random Notes of a Random Mind

-Foreign language might be a lost art on me. I don't like speaking

-Waffles....in China? Apparently they are filled with chili and all kinds of random assortments

-Sometimes I really don't know what I'm doing with my life

-Taken a recent interest in Japanese anime movies (GHIBLI!)

-I have not drank enough tea lately

-Sometimes I mix English, Spanish, and Chinese together in my thoughts (Spaneseish?)

-Trying to find my Dao. It actually makes sense in a lot of ways.

-Still forming my resolve on life.

-I love mountains

-Clean water and air are nice things to have. Kind of missing that...just a little

-Keep thinking about how I've come to have certain things and securities that people from other countries don't have and feel guilty about wanting clean air and water.

-Does anybody else have an existential crisis pretty much every day of their life? or is that just me?

-Trying to act normal makes my brain hurt

-What's the deal with the platypus, whales, and time?

-China is shaped like a Chicken

-I think I'm going to run away and live in the woods... John Muir style......grizzly bear style

-First need survival classes. I wonder if I actually have the guts to kill a fuzzy little bunny for dinner.

-I'm gonna go eat me some freaky waffles