Nanjing 2018-2019, Blog Post 9
“I feel like the past month has just been planning for the end, yet, it’s all the start for a new beginning.”- a quote by me from my journal.
By the beginning of June, I was ready to go home. I could count the weeks left on one hand, literally had every last weekend planned out, and knew how my final exams at the end of the month were going to pan out. Despite these hard facts and feelings that I had come so far, I didn’t actually know how my end time in China was going to turn out.
Turns out, June was one of the weirdest months of all. Living abroad, I fell into a pattern. Patterns of sleep, eating, studying, and going to class. But this last period of time felt like a deviation from those patterns. It was like the final home stretch, except 5 weeks long, 36 days on a countdown timer, and already full of lots of things planned out.
I had previously planned that I wanted to keep traveling on the weekends, and as mentioned before, I had a trip to see my friend from the US in Hangzhou scheduled. However, I had no idea that I was going to end up in the suburbs of Shanghai, visiting my former Chinese tutor on a whim. It was an absolutely wonderful visit, and it was so nice to feel like I was relaxing with a family. My tutor lives in a typical Chinese apartment, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and within walking distance to a supermarket. I loved staying with her, where I got to stay in my own room, play with her five year-old daughter, and get insight on how she,her husband and father all work together as a family. The Chinese family feels very close-knit and well-organized, and it was really a relief to have a pause from the campus lifestyle.
Upon return from Shanghai, I hit the home stretch of classes. The last two weeks felt so stretched out, but thank goodness I had a visit to Hangzhou planned among those weeks. Because it was Dragon Boat Festival, we had an extra day off from class! So again I hopped on a bullet train, slept the whole trip (I never have not slept on a train), and got off so excited to see my old friend! My friend, Holly, has been my friend since our freshman year of high school; we are really good friends and have been able to witness each other’s growth throughout high school. During my time in China, though, I hadn’t kept in touch with her; I think that was why she was able to see how much I had changed. (See the first post, my introduction!) It was really comforting to see a familiar face and spend time with another person of the same culture.
Talking with Holly’s roommate, meeting some of her other classmates, and adventuring with her study abroad group to a Dragon Boat Festival outing was so much fun. I think being able to express openly how I felt being away from home for almost ten months, and feeling completely at ease without having to think about cultural differences was freeing. That’s the moment I decided I wanted to start this blog, and then wrote and published my introduction.
And thinking back to that light bulb moment, I have absolutely no regrets. I am so glad I decided to write about this journey and all the hardships I encountered. Emotions in general are hard to express, and as a more logical person, it is even more challenging, but being able to channel my feelings into words has been a cathartic and productive experience.
The other part of my final weeks in China were also amazing, but I did feel like I had to have all my “lasts” and wrap up my semester. Finals were actually not as hard as midterms, and in between volunteering for the Nanjing Tech Expo Week, re-visiting all my favorite restaurants, and brainstorming where to visit after exams, I was so physically tired. I probably walked 20,000 steps a day for the last few weeks. Also, I think I had “my last bubble tea” 5 times for different flavors, so the calories burned evened out.
Another highlight of this last period of time in China was a visit from Holly and her roommate, plus the two other classmates I met in Hangzhou. The four of them took a train to Nanjing, and with me as their tour guide, we hit all my favorite tourist spots. The five of us visited the Sun-Yat Sen Mausoleum, JiMing Temple, the Nanjing City Wall, Xuanwu Lake, the famous Intercontinental building, and walked the streets around Suiyuan, my Nanjing Normal University Campus. Although I was completely wiped halfway through this one day expedition, it felt so cool to be a tour guide! It was like I was a local after living in Nanjing for ten months, and there were so many fun facts and memories I could share at each site. Having everyone down for such a big adventure and trusting me to guide them on the metro stops between each location was heartwarming. I had decided I wanted to end the evening before the Americans headed back with a group dinner with my Nanjing foreigner friends from school. My favorite restaurant, a 汤包 (soup dumpling) place was spacious enough for nine, so we all sat down to some delicious steamed delicacies. It was cool to see my worlds collide, as I knew how each person’s personality, and how the conversations from both my friend groups would unravel; it was also weird to hear that my school friends were telling Holly about how much I changed.
Lastly, my last week after exams in Nanjing is worth mentioning. I had decided back at the beginning of the school year there were certain landmarks I wanted to visit, so Iana and I agreed to keep each other accountable to the list. The very last day of exams, Iana, our German friend Josi, and I visited 夫子庙 (Confucious Temple), a region where little knicknacks are sold on old historic streets. My adventures with friends were non-stop from there– I had seven straight days of non-stop tourism. With so many different friends, a plethora of tears, and lots of farewell lunches, I had absolutely no time to sit around.