Here it is. By popular demand, a final post wrapping up my experiences in China. Of course there are far more than can easily be described, but my last few adventures also have a right to be chronicled, I supposed. So: The last week: Class was set up slightly differently that week, as we only had new lessons through Wednesday and then spent Thursday reviewing for the final. Since the written final was longer than the average test, we wrote our final oral presentation Tuesday night to be performed Thursday afternoon. They were our longest yet, 500 characters on a topic of our choosing and recited in front of a panel of four teachers instead of two teachers and the rest of our xiaobanke classmates. I wrote mine on what relationship I hope to have with China in the future vs. what I expected it to be when I arrived. To summarize: I confess that when I started taking Chinese at Yale, I wasn't all that interested in China; I only took the language because I was tired of studying French, it seemed useful, and my because suitemate picked Chinese over Arabic for me. After having been in the country for 9 weeks, I now have way more interest in the country, the politics and the people than I did before, and after having put as much work as I have into learning the language I really want to use those skills. I read that China has two particularly poor provinces, (the names of which I have forgotten at the moment but can easily look up again) which I would really like to go visit and learn about what their problems are. (I confess, I am a development junkie. Judge me if you like.) A lot of teachers asked me if I was planning on returning to HBA next year. I am thinking not, just because there are so many other (more directly-job-related?) opportunities, and also I would prefer that the next time I go back to China I have the time to see more of it than just Beijing and am not as constrained by class. Also, on Monday night of that last week, two of the head dabanke teachers came to my room and told me that they'd selected me to give the 2nd years' speech at the HBA graduation ceremony. I am a huge dork and it really made my day that they liked me and thought my speaking was good enough to do something like this; it was a huge compliment. My speech was rather short, (since the 3rd, 4th and 5th years also all had a speaker), only about 350 characters long and though I practiced, I didn't have to memorize it. I worked with one of my favorite teachers, Liu Laoshi (see picture of us below!) to clean up the grammar and practice reading it a few times on Wednesday, and then our talking degenerated into chatting about random things and then exploring facebook. (Liu Laoshi was fascinated by looking at all of our English names; she'd never heard them before. 'twas adorable. She also concluded that Yale's Chinese professors did a better job giving us Chinese names than Harvard's did. Win.) The oral exam went really well, as did reviewing on Thursday night. I went to office hours briefly to work on my graduation speech, but spent most of my time there taking pictures with all the teachers present and trying to think of suitable English names for them. As a rule, most of the Chinese people I have met are simply awful at choosing English names, since they're always thinking of the meaning. (For example, half of the staff at the hotel where Liz and I first stayed was named Candy or Sunny. One of my teachers was going by Ecko. As in the brand, not the sound. I've also heard of someone who met an old woman named Slapper. No knowing what's going on there.) The exam was far easier than I had expected. There were some things I didn't know how to write, so I didn't write them. Almost everything I did. I don't really know what my final grade will be (or when/how we're receiving them for that matter) but I am likely to be quite happy with it I think. We went straight from the exam to the graduation ceremony (I changed into my formal clothes in an empty classroom), and after the heads of BLCU and our program director I was the first to speak. The speech went over well, everybody laughed at my jokes and the teachers complimented my grammar. (I have been told my speech was the least douchey of the four of them...No comment.) Then all of a sudden, the language pledge was lifted and we could speak English again! No one wanted to though, speaking English with our teachers was too uncomfortable. The reception that followed was a delicious fancy buffet, punctuated by trying to goad the teachers into letting us hear their English and taking goodbye pictures with everyone who would stand still long enough. That evening we second years' met the teachers in the lobby and all went out to kareoke/dinner together at a little place within walking distance of campus. Apparently in addition to being great teachers and sweet people, our professors are all practically professional singers. They each sang individually at least once, mind-blowingly well as well. As in I am confident they could all get into and be stars in Yale a cappella groups. Between them and the American a cappella kids, we normal human beings were quite outclassed. I allowed myself to sing some lady gaga along with some a cappella kids and managed to blend in with them well enough not to humiliate myself. After kareoke there was a massive amount of confusion as we tried to figure out what to do next. Some people wanted to go to Vic's (club in Sanlitunr), others just wanted to hang out with the teachers and talk at Bridge Cafe near campus. I, being broke and happy to have a more relaxed evening, went to the cafe. We ordered desserts that we couldn't afford and stayed there talking and laughing and disturbing the other patrons until about 3am. Most of my classmates were leaving early the next day so they and the teachers that were taking them to the airport were just planning not to sleep at all. When I woke up the next morning, a good chunk of people were already gone. Liz and I purchased our rooms at BLCU for another two nights due to lack of better, cheaper options (all the hostels were full by the time we went looking, unfortunately.) On Saturday we did very little, mostly just caught up on sleep and enjoyed a delicious late brunch of 10 RMB french toast. On Sunday we went to Beihai park in the early afternoon (I had already been with my host family but Liz had never gone.) We just wandered aimlessly about, ate ice cream took pictures, bought random little things ( I got a Chinese necklace with my Chinese name on it! Glad Zhou laoshi chose a common one), and said our goodbyes to China. That night I went out one last time with my host father. Since my host sister and American "brother" (Rich) had already gone I was afraid it was going to be awkward but it ended up fine. We went to a rather expensive Korean restaurant at which there is a buffet of raw meat that you take back and cook at your table, drenched in some sort of amazing sauce. There was also a buffet of salady-type things and desserts and sushi and tempura and baozi and jiaozi and ahhhh it was delicious...After dinner, my host father was kind enough to drive me to Sanlitunr to meet up with Liz and some third year HBA student friends of ours. Unfortunately, since Sunday was China's national day of mourning, all the bars and clubs and the like were closed so we ended up just taxiing home to pack and get ready to leave. Monday, the 16th, was the day of my last adventure in Beijing. Liz and I got to the airport with plenty of time for us to get on our various planes, separated, and got in line. While in line I met a girl who it turned out also is a rising sophomore at Yale. She had been in China teaching public speaking to high school students (though she speaks no Chinese at all.) In the course of our conversation she told me that she had to be back at Yale the very next day because she had training for leading her foot trip. The line was moving incredibly slowly and when we got to the counter, we learned that our plane had been drastically overbooked, leading to I would guess about 25+ people stranded with no seats. Therefore the airport was offering a deal in which they would find you a flight leaving the next day and give you 2000 RMB and a free hotel room for the night. I had a ticket, having bought it so far in advance, the other Yale girl did not. So I ended up giving her my ticket and taking the crazy hotel deal. Luckily, my Chinese has gotten to the point where I can successfully argue with the airport staff into finding me another flight (which they had a lot of trouble doing since I originally had a connecting flight from New York to Washington D.C.). After about 3 hours of waiting, looking angry and yelling in Chinese, I eventually was assured that I was on a direct flight from Beijing to D.C. leaving at the same time the next day and a hotel person was called to shuttle me from the airport to the hotel, about 15/20 minutes away. The hotel room was quite nice, much bigger than what I by myself needed. The airline paid for my dinner and breakfast as well, so although meager I was happy with them. After dinner I wandered about the hotel's neighborhood for a while, taking pictures (SOON TO BE UPLOADED) and making friends with the random people I came across. Next to a small massage shop there was an abandoned lot, all overgrown and full of crumbling buildings which I could not resist exploring. In the lot I ended up finding a bunch of stray kittens hidden among the greenery. I thought, I have 2,000 RMB and free time on my hands, so I went back to the hotel, purchased an overpriced tin of sardines from the lobby store, and went back to the lot to feed the kittens and the mother cat. Two of the women working in the massage store came out to see what the crazy foreigner was doing and we ended up bonding over cute little animals and talking for like half an hour. I had planned to go out and meet up with Paul Robalino and one of our teachers, but for some reason the airport was in a sequestered corner of Beijing that it takes at least an hour to get out of, so I ended up just going back to the room and spent the night skyping, watching tv on my laptop and dancing about madly on the beds. Fantastic last evening in China. The next day I got to the airport, did some fantastic luggage-shuffling to make my suitcase light enough to avoid the 1,000 RMB fine (outrageous, I tell you, outrageous! Some Chinese airport worker is delighted to have my English book on astrobiology left over from 1st semester's science class...) , hopped on the plane, and after 14 hours of quality time with Tim the Vietnamese flight attendant and an official in the U.S.'s federal firework regulatory agency, returned to the shores of this beautiful country. I shall now proceed to enjoy my few remaining days of not spending all evening memorizing characters. Thank you Light, this would not have been possible without you all! THUS CONCLUDES MY BLOG. Here are some goodbye faces:
