Moving On

Last night, I lit a candle, as I often do on Fridays. Actually, normally I light two, as it’s Shabbat, but last night there was only one, and its makeshift candlestick was a few drops of wax dripped onto Mark’s old hard-drive. My real candlesticks are wrapped in socks, which have been nestled in a knit hat and then deposited into a knit bag currently residing in the top of my suitcase.

I have less than an hour remaining at Pengtun Middle School.

My room is as bare as it was when I moved in—far more so, in fact, as I’ve essentially cleared it out but for a corner of the kitchen in which resides a spattering of items to hand down to next year’s fellows. I’m actually taking less than I’m leaving. I organized our last class as an “auction” where my kids could use their class points to bid on such exciting items as notebooks, bags, American money, and “Miss Emily’s Tea Mug” (which went for a frightening $800). And last night I gave my coat hangers, some bowls, and a lot of school supplies to my few students not at home for the weekend.

So, other than one small box of books I mailed last week, everything I’m carrying back to America fit into one suitcase, one briefcase, and the backpack I took with me for my new year travels. Packing, which always seems such a formidable task prior to commencement, always seems to manage to happen quite quickly once the first step is taken.

There’s going to be a lot of travel over the next day or so. A bus ride to Heqing. A night bus to Kunming. A cab to the airport. A flight to Beijing. A subway (actually three, I think) to the south train station. A train to Tianjin. Once I arrive in Tianjin, I’ll have two or three days there and a couple in Beijing before getting on the biggest plane I’ll have seen in over a year and experiencing the longest 7 minutes (4:03 on 7/21/2011 to 4:10 on 7/21/2011) of my life. Then it’ll be a short little O’Hare to Atlanta hop—a trip I’ve taken probably half a dozen times en route to Mac.

For now, there’s me and my couch and perhaps 40 minutes of stillness. Stillness has been a rarity of late, so I’m trying to enjoy it. This is, in fact, the first time I’ve written more than a couple of paragraphs (this “final” Pengtun entry has been started and interrupted at least three times). Hopefully there will be time enough to finish and post prior to getting on the road. And once I’m in Beijing I hope to finish a half-completed entry about the travels of last week’s break.

The last few days have been full of 3+ hour farewell dinners, visits from my kids, and lots of lesson planning. On Tuesday evening all the TFC fellows shared dinner and drinks and silly awards. Mine was for “Culinary Excellence” and involved two cookbooks, which’ll be fun to play with. We also got gifts from both the elementary and middle school administrations, so I now have beautiful silver bracelets that I’ll never be able to wear without thinking of this year.

This morning I finally got a chance to zen as I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of mango-chocolate chip pancakes (a dish that would be at home in any American kitchen but for the fact that it was prepared in a wok and consumed with chopsticks). It was quiet, most students at home, the pitter-patter of what seems eternal rain competing ever so slightly with the music I was streaming.

I biked into town to drop off some pictures I’m printing for my kids, then met up with Arianne and her mother for lunch. We actually went to the same noodle place all the fellows ate at on our very first trip to Heqing, back last August. I hadn’t been since. It seemed like a nice bit of closure.

Then I went to empty my bank account and rode home with the equivalent of well over $1000 dollars in my raincoat’s inside pocket. This huge sum of cash was made even more dramatic by the fact that the highest value bill in China is 100 kuai, which means that I had many, many, many bills. I sure hope I don’t get robbed between here and Atlanta.

The rest of the day’s been quiet as I finished packing, scrubbing down my room, and making several trips to the trash pit. A couple of my girls who stay on campus most weekends called me up to the classroom, so I went to sit with them for a few minutes. I hadn’t expected to feel anything related to the space, but as I walked through the nearly empty room, seeing each student in his or her seat, I came close to tears. It was almost a relief—knowing that, despite its challenges, this year’s work has had enough positive impact on me that its end carries mourning as well as joy.

There are lots of things I need to process, and luckily once I’m home (in 6 days!!) I should have time to do just that. And I’ll probably have things to say about Beijing, and about reverse culture shock once I’m back Stateside, so this is by no means goodbye to the blog. It is goodbye to Pengtun, to Heqing, to the world that’s formed my life for the last year. As much as I’ve looked forward to this day, actually walking out of that school gate suddenly seems a heavy task. Change, even when desired, is hard. But it’s time to go.

The Process has begun

By “The Process,” I of course mean the absolutely insane amount of organizing, throwing away, giving away, mailing, and packing that stands between me and my night bus to Kunming on July 16^th. This time frame is slightly complicated (mostly in a good way) by the fact that we were informed this week of a 9-day-vacation, beginning yesterday and extending to next Saturday night. This is bad for two reasons: 1) it cuts way down on review time, and 2) they told us late enough in the game that flying anywhere isn’t really a possibility. However, it is also great for two reasons: 1) there are plenty of places to visit that don’t involve flying, thus allowing me to take a “bonus” trip here in Yunnan, and 2) being away from school for a few days will leave me far less likely to be staring at the calendar on my computer, compulsively counting down the remaining days of class, days in Heqing, and days in China (7, 14, and 19, for the record). I’ve decided to go down south with Arianne, her mother (who’s visiting from the states), and Mark. We’ll be hanging out in tea country for a few days. I’m very excited. Apparently there are nicely sized blocks of really good tea available for very cheap. I’ll leave today and get back probably on Friday, after an overnight in Dali on the way up.

We found out a week or two ago that Pengtun isn’t going to be a TFC school next year. Since Yiming and I are both leaving, Malijun is moving to an elementary school, and the school isn’t really dealing with a teacher shortage, the admins of both the school and TFC decided it’d be better to move Mark to another school rather than move 2-3 new fellows in. Well, that’s the official reason. There are others, I’m sure, like our test scores. TFC fellows in schools down south have had their bans (classes) taken away from them because of poor grades, and they spent this semester teaching oral English to most students in the school. There’s nothing wrong with that—in fact, I think in many cases oral English instruction would be a much more appropriate use for TFC teachers than being in charge of a ban’s complete English instruction—but it does show the natural frustration some schools are feeling with our less-than-stellar results.

But enough of that. What all of us meaning Pengtun means is that I will not be able to treat my room as a college house, as it were. My last two years at Mac, I lived in homes that had been inherited from and were subsequently passed on to Mac students. It was a pretty great deal, because we got each place mostly furnished and were able to take and leave whatever we wished when we moved out. This year, however, will be more like my first two years in college, when I lived in the dorms and a move out meant that everything other than school-provided furniture must go. We’re still not entirely clear on what belongs to the school and what doesn’t, since when we got here we already had quite a bit remaining from last year’s fellows, so that complicates things.

Packing will be a slow process, not least because I know that the more I take my room apart the more I’ll be fixated upon getting out of it. Yesterday I mailed a box of books and cards (padded with winter socks) that I’ve received over the course of the year. It was less expensive than I thought it might be, which was a relief, but as I sent it by freight who knows when I’ll get it? I also threw away a bunch of papers and other miscellaneous stuff, including my 10-month-old box of really expensive and really disgusting pork mooncakes (a gift from the school) that I smuggled out to the dumpster in the dead of night. I organized my desk drawers and collected a bag of clothes to give away. Clothes to throw away will be dealt with later. I’m paring down my pantry, trying to use up stuff and pass along/toss things I don’t think I’ll ever end up eating. There are a whole lot of decisions to be made concerning such questions as how much of my pharmacy to try to take home with me, whether or not to hang onto clothes that I like but that aren’t in fantastic shape, etc. Most of these decisions will need to be made post trip, but I’m glad to at least have gotten things going.

Anyway, not to harp entirely upon the leaving on Heqing, I share here a few stories of recent life.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I contemplated the timeless question as I braked on my bike, then swerved to the right so as not to hit the two roosters casually bobbing their way across my path. When I bike to town, I go over a mix of cement, dirt/mud (depending on the amount of rain), cobblestones, asphalt. The way I usually go, I pass through most of Pengtun, dip out onto the DaLiLu for a minute, and then cut back in to villages closer to town. I am as likely to run across a cow as I am a car, likely to see more tragons than tour busses, and not at all surprised when I find myself needing to slow in order to keep fowl alive. The other day, I also became an impromptu horse whisperer, when a foal somehow traipsed its way out of the field and onto the Pengtun village road, a few meters from the DaLiLu. While its mother neighed in what I’m sure was a most potent combination of exasperation and fear, I got off my bike and tried to coax the little horse back down. It didn’t quite work, but he at least moved farther away from the big road.

Commie Party

As some of you fine folks might know, the CCP celebrated 90 years on July 1^st, and, as such, there was a bit of hoopla around here. All of the teachers at Pengtun, and all of the teachers from other schools in the area, were required to participate in a local singing exposition/talent show. Mark and I got out of this, somehow, which is probably a good thing as it’s possible I’ll run for office some day, and Mark’s Chinese side of the family fled to Hong Kong in part because of that whole communism thing. The other teachers were required to rehearse before evening classes a few times a week, and, I must say, they were good. It’s not entirely unheard of for teachers in American schools to be drafted into singing during talent shows or other events, but I feel like the spirit there is always one of light, slightly embarrassed indulgence. There is no harmony, no solemnity.

As Mark and I watched the teachers perform, I found myself subject to the rather furious pokings of an old woman who, for some reason or another, reaaaallly didn’t like me. I could not understand a word she was saying, but she poked me for a few minutes.

On Friday night, the actual 90 Year Celebration day, I got a text from one of my very sweet and not very intelligent girls that read something like this (forgive my translation skills):

“Burning hot weather, burning hot happiness, I wish you with the Party constant good fortune, I wish you with the Party constant good luck, I wish you with the Party constant happiness, I wish you with the Party constant luck in love. On July 1^st, be happy happy!”