Adiós Hangzhou.

(Chris)

It is Thursday, the 24^th and this will probably be my last blog post from Hangzhou.  I’m sitting at my desk getting ready for tonight’s banquet.  We’re hosting a dinner tonight to thank everybody who has made our experience here one of the best of our lives.  The guest list got a little long – we invited almost 50 people!  However, not everybody can make it, so we’ll have about 40.  I’ve been asked to give a speech – in Chinese.  I’m not going to lie…I’m very nervous.  

I wrote a little something and asked Dawn to sit down with me and translate it into Chinese.  I’ve been practicing, but my Chinese is not very good.  For those that aren’t too familiar with Chinese, there are many different tones.  I have a very hard time hearing the difference between two of them.  When I repeat after Dawn, it sounds the same to me, but she keeps on pointing out my errors.  It’s frustrating – I’m a language teacher, so this should come more easily to me, but it’s quite challenging.

As I was writing my little speech last night in my apartment, I shed a few tears.  I think it’s a combination of feeling incredibly grateful for this opportunity and being very excited to see my family, friends and students when I get home.  I miss everybody terribly.  I have a feeling the first 2 weeks after I get back will be a lot of fun.

It’s also going to be weird to not see Lizzy, Colin and Ryan everyday.  They’ve become good friends. Having lunch with them is the highlight of my day.  They crack me up!  I have one more week, however, to enjoy their company.  We’ll be heading to Beijing on Sunday night before we fly back to the U.S.

It’s going to be strange saying good-bye tomorrow.  It’s all become so routine - the apartment, my bicycle, the strange mannequin-lined street to school, mystery food, the wonderful teachers in my office, my cubicle, the crazy traffic, the incessant honking of car horns, being introduced by some teachers as Christ instead of Chris – everything!  I was starting to feel like I was becoming part of it all here and now I’m leaving.  I hope the exchange between DS and Hangzhou continues so that others can experience all this.  I know it’s probably cliché to say this, but this has really changed my life and my perspective of things.  This experience was the spark I needed at this point in my life.  I’m not usually one to stray too far away from my comfort zone, but I was ready for an adventure and something to wake me up a little bit.  This did it! 

The people I met here have been some of the nicest I’ve ever met in my life.  They welcomed us with open arms and made sure that every aspect of our visit was enjoyable.  I can’t thank them enough.  To all the DS teachers reading this – I highly recommend you consider embarking on this journey in the future.  It’s been fantastic.

Hasta luego, Hangzhou.  You’ll be missed.