I remember faintly, while standing in the cold, dark corridor of Beijing WECL, Mandy, one of Yuli Guo’s(Richard Guo) lackeys, telling us how WECL had forged one of our coworker’s resume.  She said that it didn’t look very professional.   I thought at the time that maybe they had just added teaching experience or something like that and that it was rather hilarious that our school was lying to the Chinese government.  It made me wonder what they had done to my resume.

Well, a few days ago, I got a message from a guy who had contacted me about teaching at WECL.  He thought he would share some amusing information with me.

“Hey, I thought you would find this amusing.  I actually turned down the WECL job the other day but someone at the Qingdao office keeps bugging me for visa stuff.  Well they decided to “embellish” my resume and added an entire job as a behavorial therapist in Glendale, California back in 2007 while I was in college in Washington, DC.  I can’t believe they would just flat out lie to the Chinese government!  Talk about such a sketchy job!”

And now I know what probably ended up on my coworker’s resume.  Very interesting.

I knew it would happen one day, but really, I didn’t think these sort of feelings would surface for a good long while. If you ever read My Chinese Headache Part 1 and 2, and many of you must have in order to make them my top two posts of all time, then you know why I didn’t think I would miss China, for a while – anyway.

Let me explain.

I don’t miss the crap I went through to get back home. Not in the least. Yeah, it made me wiser and stronger , and all that jazz, but I never want to have to go through something like that ever again. Ever. Nor do I miss the way I was treated by some of the people in charge of me, mainly Richard Guo, AKA Yuli Guo. That man is the Anti-Christ. My blood boils when I think of him. And I don’t particularly miss my first batch of students – except one or two, and I’ve mention them before. I don’t miss the dirt or the pollution either, but who does? Oh, and the lies. All of the lies and deceit were enough to make me go mad.

What I do miss . . .

I miss the daily excitement. Everyday was a new one in China. I could never expect the same thing to happen twice once I walked out my door. There was always a new obstacle, a new challenge. Yeah, it wasn’t always easy, but they sure made life interesting. And if I ever just wanted to get my heart pumping, all I ever needed to do was hop in a taxi and ride across town. A taxi ride in China was like riding a roller coaster, except without all the steep inclines and loops.

I really miss the street food, even though I’m sure some of it made me ill – very ill. I can forgive the street vendors though because they made some very tasty, cheap snacks. I had some awesome fried banana in Beijing. God, that stuff was tastebudalicious. Yes, I just made a new word. Also, I really came to love corn on a stick. I can’t think of a better way to spend 5 yuan. Well, maybe 5 yuan on lamb sticks. I could spend 5 yuan all day on that. There are many more street snacks, but if I went into detail about all of them – you’d be here all day. 🙂

Cheap DVDs – even if some of them didn’t work quite right – were awesome. I will never forget the hours I spent watching season after season of Smallville, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and House – just to name a few. To watch those back home would have cost me a small fortune, unless of course I pirated them, but I would never do that. 🙂

I miss being the center of attention. Yes, I’m an attention whore – hate me. Even though, at times it could be a bit annoying(all the hellos and what not), it was kinda cool to feel famous. I think I had my picture taken a few million times and I now have a few more crease lines on my cheeks to prove it. Hehe. On one occasion, someone even asked for my autograph. I’ll never understand that one, but hey, it was cool. And I can’t count how many free dinners I had in China. When I was taken to a banquet or even a simple dinner at a restaurant, I felt like a Queen. I have never seen so much food.

I miss how complete strangers would welcome me into their home and offer me tea and sometimes fruit, just because they could. Half of the time we couldn’t understand each other, but we didn’t have to.

So, I imagine one day, Phil and I will have to go back. I don’t know when that will be, though. And hopefully, China won’t change so drastically that we won’t be able to recognize it when do.