Chapter 6: The Last Chapter

I tried writing a blog post about a month ago, but I couldn’t think about what to write about... Now my time in China is just about up, and my mind is suddenly on overload and there is simply too much for me to say and do in what feels like an impossible short period of time: one week. Here’s my formal goodbye, my farewell note, to the place that showed me China: 海口 Hǎikǒu.

Chapter 6: The Last Chapter

So here it is, the final chapter, and my last update of my high school year in China. As much as I wish I weren’t already writing this, I also feel that it is definitely time that I do. 

It started setting in that I would soon have to leave about a month ago, and it was not a pleasant feeling. However, last week is when it finally hit me hard. A week-and-a-half ago I had the good fortune to visit the ancient Chinese capital, 西安 Xī’ān, with a group of my exchange-student friends studying in 安徽 Ānhuī Province. However, when I came back Sunday evening I started feeling icky. This may be in part because I realized that, as far as I know, I probably won’t get to see the people I had just goodbye to in Xī’ān for a very long time. Not to mention, our goodbyes were quite rushed because I had to run early to catch a flight. As a result, I was missing a sense of closure. 

This feeling carried into the next day when I walked into school and found students from another class taking away the desks (with our stuff in them!) from our international students’ classroom. 

You see, although I haven’t talked about them in any of my previous blog posts, I have grown really close to the other exchange students here in Hǎikǒu. At my school (海南华侨中学 Hǎinán Huáqiáo Zhōngxué Hainan Overseas Chinese Middle[/High] School) there were six of us: Kathrin from Germany; Monte from Australia, who was only here for the first semester; Lodovica from Italy, who also went to Xī’ān with me; Maria from Indonesia, who’s not here through AFS but is just like one of us; and Wongu from South Korea, who is also not here through AFS, but doesn’t attend Chinese class with us. At another school, there are two more AFSers: Eleonora, also from Italy; and Elisa from France. We all became very close early on in the year, along with the Chinese teacher at our school, Ms. Ji (吉老师 Jí Lǎoshī), and the room at our school where we had Chinese classes became sort of like home-base for all nine of us. Every afternoon the five of us would study there, and on Thursdays Eleonora and Elisa would come from their school to do a cultural project with us. 

So, when I walked into our classroom last Monday, only to find that they were taking away our desks, markers, chairs, etc. I was a bit shocked; however, at first I wasn’t too upset by it as I had already grabbed the things I wanted to take home, and I knew the others had done the same. Not long after that a teacher came in and told me that we were “gonna clean up the room.” This was fair, as the room was messy, and the school was preparing for testing. But what I didn’t realize was that, to her, “cleaning up” meant throwing all of our stuff away! All of the things we had made, all the decorations we had prepared for the room, little things that reminded me of the others and our times together were all being stuffed into bags ready to be thrown out. It was all simply... vanishing. Then, the teacher picked up our hot-glue gun, asked herself “Why would they possibly need this?” and threw it into the bag... and that’s when I lost it. (Lodovica loves hot glue, and often while we were studying and she needed a break, she simply plugged in the hot-glue gun and looked for different crafts to start just so she could use the hot glue.) Something about this teacher throwing out that little hot-glue gun caused me to completely break down and cry; yes, I ran into the bathroom and cried (and is that really something I should be ashamed of?). At that moment I just had to ask myself why today? Why did this all have to happen on the same day I was already mourning the end of my exchange. It’s like the universe did this purposefully, with the intent of demonstrating to me exactly what I was feeling. Suffice to say, it was not was good morning. Luckily, I contacted Ms. Ji, convinced the other teacher not to immediately throw everything out, and packed up a few things the nine of us deemed “important” to send to Ms. Ji.

That day was also the last time I set foot in that room. Since then I’ve fallen into the “lasts” mindset: the last time all of us eight exchange students hang out together; the last time I see my classmates outside of school; the last time I see my first host family; the last time we see Maria, and have to say goodbye to her as she checks in at the airport to go home; the last chapter of my blog. It feels like everything is ending without a conclusion. We say our goodbyes but it still doesn’t really hit me that I have no idea when or if I’ll ever be able to see these people or places again. Everything and everyone are just disappearing, vanishing, *poof*.

But I’ve also realized something else. This past week I also visited the southern part of the island with my host family. The thing about traveling with Chinese people, though, is that you must go about your day just as a Chinese person would. Yes, I’ve been living in China, and I’m very comfortable with my life in China; but the thing is, that’s only my life in China. I’ve only become used to my interesting Western-Chinese mixed lifestyle I’ve developed in China, and I only just realized now that I’ve never fully adapted to the culture (although when it comes to China that may be impossible for nearly every foreigner). And when my family took me to an all-you-can-eat buffet that turned out to just be a bunch of raw ingredients for hot-pot, I realized that it is time for me to go home. I’m exhausted. I haven’t been home for 10 months straight, and in that time the closest place to a Western country that I’ve been to has been Hong Kong... even though when I visited Hong Kong two years ago it felt like one of the most foreign places I had ever set foot in. Despite how much I don’t want to leave China, I know that now I need to go home.

I am going to miss Haikou. I’m going to miss the people I’ve met here; I’m going to miss the adventures I’ve had here; I’m going to miss the food I’ve tasted here; I’m going to miss the things I’ve seen here—the Haikou of today.

And I’m going to remember China. I’m going to remember the friendships I’ve made here; I’m going to remember the lessons I’ve learned here; I’m going to remember the connections I now have here, and how much they mean to me.

But now, it’s time to move foreword.

Thank you, Haikou, and goodbye.

海口，再见。感恩不尽。