Writing this article from the suburbs of Chicago where I am now staying with my aunt, uncle, and two young cousins. Yesterday I returned to US soil after enduring a twenty hour flight that saw the pilot having a stroke on the runway in Beijing and a stop-over in San Francisco to change the crew and remaining pilots. Tomorrow, I head down to Notre Dame to see my sister’s graduation and catch up with my family. Of course, I am very excited, though I also am already missing some of the better aspects of Beijing life.

 

My last two weeks in China were spent traveling and saying goodbye. After quitting school and work, I traveled through Guizhou and Guangxi provinces in southern China for two weeks, coming back to Beijing for three days to pack and say a few more goodbyes. In leaving, I started to realize how much some people meant to me (and conversely how much I apparently mattered to them, giving me a bit of pause for reconsideration of the impact of what I thought was a short eight months in the Middle Country.

 

Having been back in the States for two days, I have already started noticing a few things. The first observation came to my while shopping for some new tennis shoes as the fake Timberlands I bought from the Silk Market just were not going to cut it. At Kohl’s, the shopping experience was a little disconcerting - there were no lines, and there was so much space to stop and browse. At the same time, I was struck by the size of my fellow countrymen. I had forgotten how large Americans actually are, especially those in the suburbs. With cars and McDonald’s prevalent and convenient, the average suburbite has to work harder to keep fit than it might seem! At dinner in the city this evening, I noticed how my perceptions of food had changed. No longer could I eat the large portions Americans are accustomed to; instead, I finished half my plate. The difference came in that I lacked a feeling of guilt to finish my food. Finally, American attitudes are striking me as slightly odd, more outgoing than the Chinese I had grown accustomed to.

 

Anyway, the time change is setting in, and I have to be up early tomorrow to babysit my cousin. Hope that I can keep in touch with the newly found Chinese side of my life in the future, though underneath I will always be American.