Well, it’s April now – marking my 5th month in
China, and only 1 month remaining…
So I’ve now entered a ‘reflective mode’, which mostly
consists of me zoning out and playing montages in my head of memories just
before coming to China and thereafter. Am I excited? Upset? Eh, as you’d expect
I’m a mixture of the two with a dash of anxiety.
It feels like just yesterday I was last living in this room...
Tomorrow is my last day working as an intern at ‘Homy
International Design’ which certainly is pretty exciting. For the past month
I’ve had barely anything to do there other than do the odd Chinese lesson and
browse the internet on my phone - That’s been quite cool, I’ve educated myself
a lot through reading nearly every Wikipedia article out there (meaning maybe
about 60% of what I’ve learnt is true). However, it’s a tell-tale sign that my
time here has run its course and I should go back to treating working life more
seriously.
I can’t make a full-blown speech about how I’ll miss
everyone at the company etc. because to be brutally honest I’ve only been
properly acquainted with maybe 10 people out of 150. However it doesn’t change
the fact that for the past 5 months 6 days a week they have provided nearly all
social contact with other beings, and I will miss that. With language barriers
and different ways of working it’s definitely been a struggle to fit in there,
but eventually I managed it. Many people didn’t really approach me, but
understandably because they are unsure of their English skills and aware of my
basic Chinese skills – although I’ve often felt ignored I know for a fact that
they are friendly people when they walk past and exchange a smile.
Speaking of differences at the company, I’ll never forget
the first day I arrived. I was shown to my desk which was covered with mouse
poop (the cleaner later sorted that out), and this mouse by the way is still at
large – I often see it running down the office floor in the corner of my eye.
They’ve set up some traps now, but to no avail. I also remember the first lunch
break we had when I went out to buy some food and returned to the office to
find the lights out and everyone on fold-out beds fast asleep. I had to weave
myself through a sea of beds in the dark to get to my poop desk and eat my
lunch as quietly as possible. Upon learning that this is common practice in
China, from then on I ate my lunch outside.
I will miss the company and everyone in it. I’ve exchanged
contacts with folk, but I’m unlikely to see them in person again as many of
them are also interns who will soon leave to go home elsewhere in China. I hope
I’ve brought something good to the company as I’m thankful for the experience,
and I’m sure it’s done something good for my cv!
I'll miss the awesome breakfasts at the local bakery!
Work is just one aspect of my new life here. Some days it
almost feels like me and Yinzi are a married couple…We share a house, we only
get to see each other after work and we have daily routines with each other.
This I think will be the hardest thing to leave behind (apart from Yinzi
herself of course). This routine is so rooted into my everyday expectations
that it’s hard to grasp that I have to leave it all at once to never return to
it. In most situations it would be a gradual change like moving home but still
being with the same person and the same things, or buying new furniture and
decorating but being with the same person in the same home. This situation
however, it all has to be put to a stop. It’s not all depressing because I love
life back in England and after a few weeks I’ll re-acclimatise, maybe buying
dumplings and Chinese tea at the Chinese supermarket now and then to recreate
past doings, but despite the difficulties I’ll really miss it here.
The city life is crazy, but just has so many possibilities
Most of all, the only true fear I have about leaving is
leaving Yinzi. I may have to get quite mopey writing about this, because it
really is the part I most dread. Sure leaving her for a year will be incredibly
difficult, but we can make it through that with Skype and exchanging letters
etc – it’s a much better situation than the married couples with children who
made it through WWI and II. However it gets more serious than that. The fact is
Yinzi doesn’t really like Guangzhou. Without the glow of exciting new things
that makes me love the city, for local Chinese folk it’s quite stressful and
highly demanding. The metro is like a conveyor belt which takes people to work
in the morning, then back home, then they sleep. Right now Yinzi doesn’t even
get weekends free! Maybe one day a week on average she will have a free
afternoon, but that’s all. Then when she comes home she has to make lesson
plans for the next day.
Needless to say she hates it, and I’m terrified to
leave her like this. I can offer my support from afar but that doesn’t change
the fact that she has to return from work every day to an apartment by herself
with nobody to moan to and keep her company at night. In this respect I feel
quite hopeless and guilty, so I hope that with time after I leave this
situation can get better. I hope she gets a home with friends at work and I
really hope she can make new friends, and I certainly want the company to cut
her some slack and give her some sort of a break to ease her mind – and
hopefully with the distance between us that I can still help her mind too.
We will spend 8 months apart - the distance of time from when we went camping at ladybower!
There are plenty of other things I’ll miss here too. There’s
so much food here, so many cool and cheap things to decorate my house and just
so much to do. Although I do look forward to returning to the UK – I miss being
around my family and friends, being able to do anything without a language
barrier, walking out into the peaks and be immersed in the greenery (something
I truly always took for granted) and all my plants!
There’s a certain laid back
nature about England which just makes everyday life more relaxed, despite the
weather and university coursework. I look forward to being able to socialise
with friends again and visit my family whenever I feel like it, I also really
miss carpets! Honestly, no place in China has carpets! My feet are always
cold…have I mentioned this before?
Yeah, still not missing that toilet....
Anyway, of course I want to go back home, but there’s never
really a ‘right time’ to go back – I just kind of have to go back. I can’t work
for the company any longer, I can’t get another visa without reapplying back in
the UK and I have to return for my studies with some money left over. If only I
could bring all this with me. If only I could somehow drag China with me and
attach it to the coast of England so I can go back for weekends. If only Yinzi
was in a job she loved so that I can leave knowing she’s in a good state of
mind to prepare for the hardship facing the relationship, and if only she could
come back to England with me. As amazing as it is to make China my second home,
I can’t help but feel like I’ve split my life in two and placed them where one
half is always out of reach.
Nonetheless, that’s how it is. I can never regret coming
here as it’s made me so much of a better person that I can’t even begin to
describe the change (maybe one of them is openness, as I probably wouldn’t
share this much on an internet blog for all to read before…). Life is just like
a river; either I can fight against it and get nowhere, or I can go with the
flow and keep moving to see where it takes me. I can be comfortable in knowing
that after this experience I will have the strength to take on whatever it is
I’m confronted with, and that all things if left to nature and nurture rather
than force are meant to be.
p.s. My next post won’t have such a low tone, as this
weekend I’m going to Beijing with Yinzi! Visiting the Great wall and the
Forbidden City among other things!
Zai’jian!
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