Closing Out One Chapter (Two Years Later)

It was brought to my attention by a good friend of mine (and one of six followers of this blog), that I had implied in my previous post that there would be another ultimate post to cap off my 1.5 year stint in the middle kingdom. Since that time, I have gone into seminary, survived my first year, been back to China, and am now over halfway through my second year of school. So admittedly it seems a bit silly to come back and finish a story that has long since finished. After all, no one, probably not even my colleagues still in China (or South Africa or wherever the Hell they are) will even notice that I've written a new blog. But I suppose now, even if the memories are a little faded, the time to sit and reflect will have made my recollection all the more poignant.

So here it is.

I miss you China. Deeply. I am a patriot. I love my country and I love democracy. But I still miss China. Hyde Park has its fair share of Chinese, but it just isn't the same.

I miss the roller coaster ride every time I ride a cab. I miss being able to afford riding a cab. I miss the stinky air and smog. I miss the insufferably optimistic red banners and Monty Python marching music at collegiate sports events. I miss KTV. I miss the endless blocks of boutique shops with 10 articles of clothing. I miss the blatant ripoff brands of Polo and Nike. I miss the old men and women constantly eating their seeds and gross dried fish. I miss the men hiking up their shirts to keep cool and the mothers holding the babes over the trashcan to poop. I miss being paid to give lectures or lawnmower racing and comic books. I miss being peer pressured into taking shots of the nastiest liquor ever fermented. I miss listening to Jackie Chan sing on the radio. I miss the quarantine of hundreds of students during swine flu outbreaks. I miss the the fireworks outside my apartment window, in the middle of the day, announcing yet another goddamn wedding. I miss the teachers taking a smoke break during an inter-departmental basketball game. I miss the nouveau riche paying me obscene amounts of money and/or taking me to fancy restaurants in exchange for educating their daughters.

...and so on. And yes, I still miss reading that phrase twenty times in every single essay a student wrote for me.

Leb Wohl