So I am here in the Hong Kong International Airport where everybody and their mother is on the internet, so I always have about 3 seconds of connectivity before it disappears on me. So, you just might get this when I reach US soil. I am currently just sitting on the floor in front of one of those information screens waiting for my boarding gate to be decided. So, while I wait, I write one last post while I am here in Asia. This one is going to be kind of long, so forgive me when I ramble.
First, a brief description of our cruise on the Yangtze. In one word: unexpected. In many words: Oh my goodness. My initial expectations of this river cruise were: Heather and me being the youngest on the boat and a bunch of foreigners cruising along the Yangtze. So. Not the youngest. By far. And they might be foreigners (in my mind they were German) but they are all ethnically Chinese. So, Heather is the only one on the boat that looks overtly foreign and the two of us were the only ones who need English to be spoken. Yep. GOOD TIMES. Talk about awkward. If we weren’t on this cruise, they wouldn’t need to speak English at all. I actually pouted for about an hour or so until I got over the fact that the cruise wasn’t going to be what I thought it was. Lol Such is life. So, we move on.
The actual cruise was actually quite nice. It wasn’t the best experience I have ever had, but it was just a nice break from the two weeks of traveling we had prior to boarding our ship. Our meals were taken care of and all we had to do was show up when asked. I found out on the last day of the cruise that we were actually upgraded a cabin through our travel agency because we didn’t get the original cruise ship we had wanted. Which was amazing. To be truthful, I was afraid that it would be one of those situations where you have interacted with a “travel agency” only to show up and be told that it never existed. So, it was an enormous relief to not have that happen.
I thought that it would be a nice way to kind of acclimate myself back into Western society, but that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, there were an overwhelming number of ethnically Chinese people on this cruise. We find out throughout the cruise that many are mainland Chinese nationals, but also people from places like Singapore and Australia. There were a ton of people who spoke both Cantonese and Mandarin. So it was an experience to help me in the airport. And make me very aware of how very far I still have to go. This time in China has been all about humbling experiences.
We actually also spent Christmas day on the cruise, which was a little bit odd. The holiday season in China doesn’t feel like the holiday season. So it just feels like another day. It was interesting for sure. The cruise made a small effort to decorate a little bit, which was certainly appreciated, but like I said, it just isn’t the same. Corny but: There’s nothing quite like home for the holiday season. I’m glad that I’ll be home for the tail end of it at least.
We got off the cruise a little bit early just so I could catch my flight home and it sounds weird, but it was kind of a relief to just get back to what I was familiar with and not be on that boat anymore. I’ve found that my classmates and I have been the types to just avoid the tour groups the entire semester, and it is funny that I finally end up in one at the end of my time here in China.
We came home late last night, and I entered the apartment I had been staying in for the entire semester only to repack and redistribute all the stuff that I had accumulated and hadn’t sent home. My roommates had gone off for the holidays so I was all by myself. It was a little bit sad actually. I took a nap in my freezing cold apartment and woke up this morning to spend the last of the Chinese money burning a hole in my pocket. We walked to school one last time and got some breakfast on our way to buy more souvenirs. And we got lunch at our regular restaurant. And I shopped one last time at the convenience store that is right by our apartment.
The moment I knew that it was time to leave for the airport in Chengdu, I started to tear up just a little bit. Four months. That’s all the time I’ve had here in China. I wouldn’t have traded a second. As I sit here, my time in Asia is over, my flight is about to leave in a couple of hours, I will stop living in the future, and get back to my present in America.
I'm happy to be going home, to be surrounded by familiar things and know what people are yelling at me about. I'm ecstatic to be going home to family, excited to see friends (less so about school but that is another story). But I'm really sad to go. I've made some truly great friends here and met some incredible people. I couldn't have imagined a better group of people to be in a foreign country with. I have been able to explore and travel far more here than I have the freedom to do at home. I've been learning here. Maybe not as quickly as I would have liked, but it was a process. One that I hope continues. In all, China has been an experience. Wonderful, inspiring, enlightening. Stifling, uncomfortable, foreign. It's all there.
Lessons that I am taking with me? I'm not quite sure yet. You expect to be changed, but you don't know quite how much until you get a proper gauge. I guess my gauge is when I am back in the US. I'll get back to you. So, with that, it is time to sign off. Time to go. See you guys when I get back.
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