Week 11: Home Sweet Home

I'm safely back on American soil here at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, sitting next to a giant wall of windows with rocking chairs in the front row, waiting for my connection to San Diego. The spot looks familiar to me; either I happened to pass by the last time I was in Seattle (which was in middle school), or this is the location of that classic scene from Up In the Air.

I'm grateful for the time I had in China. I'd like to think that my Chinese speaking ability and overall life maturity has benefited decently in these 11 weeks. I'd like to think I have an increased comfort level with doing things on my own, including traveling to new places, which I had never done before. And yet, I will miss the company of my grandmother, who stuffed me with food whenever possible and gave me umbrellas even when it wasn't raining. I will miss looking at a price and dividing it by 6.3 and feeling better about the purchase, but I won't miss looking at Mao's face on every single bill.

But oh my goodness it is nice to be able to type on a computer without accidentally switching on the Chinese pinyin mode. Thank you guys (all seven of you) for reading along during my time here. I look forward to seeing all of your faces very soon.

Week 10: Closing Time

With just a few days left in Beijing, I'll just come out and say it. I'm ready to go home. It's been a good experience on the whole, but I feel like I'm ready to move on with my life. Through my time here I've learned that while I could live in China permanently and survive just fine, the United States are most definitely home for me, and as they say, home is where the heart is.

A few quick hits from the previous week...

1. All the signs had pointed to my internship being unpaid, to the point where I had just accepted my uncompensated status without directly asking if I was getting paid for my time here. So you can imagine my delight when they informed me that I still had to go get my paycheck from the month of May with about four days left in June. All in all, I made a cool 4,000RMB during my time here, which amounts to a grand total of $632.91 in American dollars haha. Although this turns out to roughly $2.63/hour, I was still pretty pleased to be getting anything at all. On the bright side, this sum pays for all of my living expenses while in China plus some, so I guess it's all about perspective and expectations. As Mr. Chi City would say... get money, get paid.
2. I had donkey meat for the first time this past week. Apparently it's a trendy meat these days--the restaurant I went to specialized only in donkey dishes. Aside from a slightly weird red hue, it didn't really taste much different than beef.
3. While finally making it out to the Bird's Nest and Water Cubic (which you can swim in yourself for only 50RMB, or about $8), I noticed a little food stand selling weird fried insects. Of course, there were the expected beetles, grasshoppers, and scorpions that everyone always talks about, but I was quite shocked/disgusted to see these giant fried tarantulas also skewered on a stick. I mean, these babies were as big as my hand probably. The vendor got mad when I tried to take a picture, but my cousin was able to snap a blurry photo while running away.
4. Excited to make my second ever trip to the Great Wall tomorrow. Different portion than the tourist-heavy part I went to in 2004, and I'm going at it solo this time around. I think it's one of the places in the world where I've come closest to reaching the sublime (thank you, E100... the gift that keeps on giving.), so it should represent a nice final image of China and last hurrah to my time in Beijing.