Goodbye, Xingtai!

Well, it's almost over!  We have said goodbye to all of our students and friends, we're doing final shopping trips, packing up our stuff, taking lots of pictures, and getting anxious to be home.  Our feelings last week were torn because we had finally started to feel like we had a life here, but now that we've changed our mindset and said goodbye to everyone we love here we're pretty excited to move on and see what else life has in store for us! 

Some of our classes were pretty hard to leave.  We decided to make the last class period fun so it basically turned into a free period where we listened to music, played hot potato (usually turned into a dance party), watched a couple short videos, took pictures, and gave them pennies. I was worried that they wouldn't understand we were  leaving this country and would never see them again, but I think most of them actually got the idea because I received more heartfelt hugs, kisses, high fives, drawings, origami, and heartfelt "goodbye teacher"s than I've had all semester....that could have something to do with the pennies, movies, and music, but I'll just pretend it was because they love me :)

 This class has so much personality. Sometimes it made it tough to teach, but they were a lot of fun.  There were several times where I'd be teaching my lesson and have to stop and laugh because a boy randomly pulled a funny face or a girl put on a silly hat to try and distract me.  The boy in the front randomly broke out in "Gangam Style" a few times too.  Kinda funny until he started calling me a sexy lady...yeah, not so funny anymore.

 These boys were great!  Their class was a nightmare in the beginning, but something turned them around and they ended up being one of my favorites.  I'm pretty sure the boy in the gray has a hearing disorder because he has a pretty high-tech looking hearing aid and couldn't speak correctly.  He's a great student, though, and tries really hard.  By the end of the semester, I got to the point that I could make out when he was trying to answer a question and got really excited when he sometimes even said English words the right way!

 

 This class was stinkin adorable about me leaving. They completely understood what I meant when I said I was going back to America and they were so excited and grateful for the pennies.  After class they all came up asking about how much they were worth in Chinese money and where they were from and didn't want me to leave even though it was lunchtime.  When their teacher came to bring them to the cafeteria, the little boy in the front in the white shirt grabbed my hand and dragged me over to his teacher because he wanted to introduce us.  Although I don't speak much Chinese and they don't speak much English I could tell he loved both of us as his teachers and wanted us to know it. It was so sweet!

 In the beginning of the semester, the girl in the blue never smiled.  I couldn't get her to interact at all,  I noticed none of the other kids paid much attention to her, and I could sense the emptiness that she felt.  I tried to give her specific attention, chose her to help me out in class, and gave her many genuine smiles and we started to see a change.  I definitely don't take credit for it because I'm sure there were other things going on that helped, but something changed in her and this is the girl she's turned out to be.  She now gets excited to see me and wave when I pass her and I'm noticing a lot more interaction with other students and in the classroom.  I hope that means that whatever was bothering her is long gone now.

Just some more of my super cute Chinese kids. 

Preschool!!  These guys are so much fun to teach.  It takes a lot of energy and planning because they get bored fast, but they have so much personality (as you can tell from the picture) and love of learning.  Both Jason and my classes caught onto the lessons better than our oldest classes and had fun while they were at it.  The last day, we reviewed and played games with a little sock man that I made and they LOVED it!  They could not control their excitement every time someone threw it.  There was lots of squealing, laughing, screaming, and jumping up and down to the point that their teacher had to come in several times to tell them to quiet down.  It was so funny! 

These are some students from the very last class I taught. They have had a special place in my heart this semester, despite how rambunctious they can get, so I was excited to have them last.  These kids always try to talk to me and no matter how many times I get it across to them that I don't understand they just don't give up.  One girl insisted on making me understand what I was saying, but I seriously had no idea till her friend said "America" in Chinese and then I realized she was trying to talk to me about my leaving!  We had a "conversation" (lots of gestures and small English and Chinese words) about how I was going home and not coming back and I was sad and then they got kind of sad too!  It was really sweet. When all their parents showed up to bring them home for the long weekend they actually ignored them for a few minutes so that they could say goodbye to me. The girl in the white dress held her arms up for me to come down to her level then threw her arms around my neck which led to several other girls doing the same thing and kissing my cheeks.  I loved it!  The boys didn't want to be left out, though, so as I was walking out the door to let the parents in the kids completely blocked them out by surrounding me and hugging my waist, legs, and arms.  It was a perfect end to the semester.  I'm sure going to miss all of my students!  My biggest regret about the semester is that I didn't speak Chinese.  I wish we could have actually gotten to know each other personally instead of just how we treat each other in class.  Chinese names are also very foreign and I just couldn't learn every one of their names which was sad too. It would have made it much more personal if I could have at least called them by name.  I hope they don't all forget me too easily, though, and that I've made some kind of positive lasting impression. 

It's funny because when we decided to come to China, I had this vision of us coming here and making a big difference.  I wanted to change someone elses life, bring happiness to a country that I thought needed it, and be an amazing English teacher to students who would be anxious to learn and love me instantly (psh, right. Those kids take work!).  I was not prepared for the exact opposite thing to happen in every one of those ways.  First of all, I think the person who had the most life changing experience here was me.  I saw parts of me that I didn't even know was there.  Some I'm proud of, some not so much.  I learned I definitely have a feisty side.  If someone is doing something I don't like and I don't have any personal connection to them then I'm not afraid to let them know I'm not happy....probably something I should work on, but I'm glad to know that side of me exists because now I can work on how to let it manifest itself in a more productive way.   On a more positive note, I learned I can be pretty darn strong with the help of Heavenly Father and my husband.  I know that this journey may not have been too difficult for some people, but it was really hard for me and there were so many times I honestly didn't think I could do it.  Thinking about being in China for almost five months was so overwhelming sometimes that I just knew something would have to happen halfway through to give us an excuse to go home.  Now, June 30th, I'm still here and both of us are doing great with every intention of finishing strong.  We're going to make it and it feels so good!

Second thing that didn't go as planned was that I thought I'd be able to show these people how to be happy. Man, I was so naive. They don't need someone else to come show them how to do something they've been succeeding at for so long!  Every culture has their own way of thriving and China is no exception.  They've had a rough history and they are still struggling in some ways, but the people themselves are strong. They make do with what they have and don't need someone like me to come in and tell them it's not enough.  There are definitely some things about China that I would love to see change.  I'd love to see the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accepted here and missionaries allowed to proselyte to anyone (especially to my students and Chinese friends),  their government could definitely use a complete overhaul, and it would be really nice if they kept things a bit cleaner, but for now the people are doing just fine and are mostly okay with their way of life. 

Living in Xingtai has been a great lesson in gratitude for Jason and I. We are reminded often of how blessed we feel to have been born into good, American, LDS, prosperous families.  I have always loved the United States, but I don't think I've ever felt so patriotic about it before.  For example, there were several different flags hanging up outside a restaurant the other day and we saw the American flag so, of course, rushed over to look at it up close. It was sad, though, because it was all twisted around the pole and there were holes in it which is probably not a big deal to them, but for us we got pretty protective of it. We had to unfurl it and watch it wave in the breeze and I just felt so proud to be American.  It seems very fitting that the day after we get back is Independence Day.  It's going to feel very patriotic :)

Anyways, enough sentimentality.   We've had a few free days after classes ended to tie up some loose ends.  We spent a lot of time walking outside in the 100 degree weather to get our train tickets,  find things we've been wanting to buy, and enjoy Xingtai sights one last time.  As far as heat goes, we did mostly okay.  Friday I got a bit of heat exhaustion we think, but I was okay after sleeping for a long time, drinking some gatorade, and taking a cool shower.  Boy are we excited for the intense heat we've been hearing about in Utah (yeah, right).  At least we'll have normal A/C there, though!

Jason has fallen in love with ketchup.  He goes through so much of it, it's kind of hilarious. For being someone who has always insisted he doesn't like to put things like syrup, salt, butter, ketchup, etc. on his food, he sure loves them all now! His excuse is that it's a familiar flavor and that's why he likes it now. 

Our little supermarket sells potato, carrot burritos that are usually pretty good unless they add in really spicy pepper strips.  I was eating one and just the outside of my mouth touched an especially spicy pepper and it started burning so bad!  I couldn't get it to stop and it started to turn red.  They don't do ice in China so the only thing in  our freezer was a little chicken nugget so I used that as my ice pack.  It worked!

There are so many different kinds of melons here!  This one is a type of honeydew.

Finding food we can make on our own has been a battle, but we finally found out we can buy frozen dumplings (jiaozi) and boil them on our own!  Of course we'd figure this out now...

These strollers are so teeny and simple. No complicated buttons or anything.   They're pretty popular around here and I want one!

A very common sight at a street market.  It's a box about 4 ft x 6 ft completely full of huge fish. It stinks really bad and they kill, skin, and de-bone on the spot sometimes which means there is blood, fish scales, and stench everywhere you go.  These places are not for the faint of heart.

Oh, just FYI, we figured out where the mosquitoes are coming from.  We have killed at least 30 mosquitoes between 8 pm and this morning even with our cool mosquito repellant wall plug-in.  We were attempting to watch a movie, but had to stop it every few minutes to kill a few mosquitoes.  We got so frustrated that we started to watch to see where they were coming from and realized they were flying in right through the closed door!!  Apparently it's not sealed well at all and since we're some of the only people on campus right now they're especially attracted to our apartment. We are pretty good at killing them now because, between us and the repellant, we got hardly any bites!

We'll be updating later on this week about our going home!!  We're praying it all goes smoothly (in every way - motion sickness is no fun) and that there isn't too much excitement, but we'll let you know.