The word is that we will be leaving Beijing(thank God) for Shenyang either on the 3rd or 4th, but I have no idea which mode of transportation we will be using. I vote for the plane, but we have too much junk. Supposedly, they will pay to have our stuff shipped there, so I see no reason to take the train if that is the case.

Currently, to bide our time, we have been watching season after season of Smallville and House. We’ve also stocked up on a whore of movies that we picked up at various DVD stores for about 7 yuan each. They are all pirated, but strangely I feel no guilt handing over the money for them unless I get home of course to find that they don’t work! I guess that is what we will continue to do until we leave. It is the cheapest way of saving money, and right now are funds are pretty limited after are trip to and from Hong Kong. I sure hope we get paid soon.

Oh, and the best part about finding out when we leave is finding out when we start teaching. That would be the 5th. The Chinese sure know how to wait to the last minute. I don’t know how they expect us to teach with no preparation. I guess we will manage some how. We always do.

Shenyang is a big city and we will be smack dab in the center of it. That being the case – we should be able to pick up on a wireless signal. If not, it may be longer to post the pictures, but I will get to them. It just might take me a bit. Believe me, it is just as frustrating for me, as it is for you. I want you to see them too.

This is a short and very to the point statement to say that I am still alive and well and that as soon as I arrive in my new home in Shenyang, I will post all the pictures and tell you all the stories of my 40 some odd day vacation. As soon I get internet connection again. Promise.

Currently, I am sitting in the Viennea Airport Hotel in Shenzhen, China. Geographically, it’s like being in Florida. It’s a nice city, and I find it hard to believe that about two decades ago it was a mere fishing village. But, I am way ahead of myself.

Phil and I spent about two weeks in Beijing, walking around and doing normal touristy things. We bought a tourist map at a local bookshop for 8 yuan and tried our best to plan out our days ahead. Beijing may not be that pretty, it’s rather bleak and depressing actually, but the one thing it does have is things to do. There are about a dozen temples and parks littered throughout the city, as well as shopping centers, markets and whatever else you can think of. Transportation isn’t that bad, but from where we were staying – off of the 5th ring road – it took nearly an hour if not more to get to any one particular place. That had mostly to do with the fact that Beijing is a large sprawling city and we had a hard time finding things within a reasonable walking distance. Even though we stuck to the subway and took taxis when it was the obvious better choice, our poor feet hurt on a daily basis.

We went to Tiananmen Square which reminded me of a Super Walmart parking lot. It was impressive because of it’s size, but other than that it was just a huge slab of bricks and would have helped out the air pollution problem more so if it was a park. Of course we visited the Forbidden City as well. Parts of it were under construction because of the Olympics. Beijing wants the city to be as pretty as can be when the hordes of people come to visit in 2008.

The one thing that these picture don’t express is how cold it was the day we decided to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It wasn’t the actual temperature that was so bad. For the majority of our stay, the temperature stayed in the 30’s and 40’s during the day and dipped a little below that at night. The problem was the wind. As I stood in the middle of Tiananmen, 30 mph wind gusts slammed into me and Phil. If either one of us had been a little lighter, I think we would have experienced what it was like to be a kite and joined the others fluttering above our heads.

It was in Tiananmen that we learned of the first of many Art Exhibits of the day located in the area. As we were walking around, a young man and woman approached us and began talking to us in English. They wanted to know where we were from, what we were doing in China, what we thought of Beijing, so forth and so on. They explained that they were art students and that they had some of their art work in one of the fancy buildings we were standing by. Supposedly it was free and that they just wanted to show off their traditional Chinese paintings. They tried very hard to get us to follow them in, but Phil and I have grown wary of Chinese people wanting to show us something special and free. We have found that almost everyone has something to sell a foreigner, and more times than not – it’s a scam. We declined and went about our business. At that point in time though we thought that they had both been sincere and didn’t think too much of it, but within the next 30 minutes or so we were approached by another man wanting to show us the same thing. He seemed as friendly as the last guy, but decided then that it was probably something we wanted to avoid. The funny part is that by the time we got down walking around Tiananmen and the Forbidden City at least 10 other people from 10 other exhibits asked us to come look at their art work. Some where more persistent than others. Eventually we just had to start ignoring them or telling them we had already seen it which really confused them.

We’ll have to go back when our parents come in July. It may be windy then too, but at least it won’t be so blistering cold. The wind made it very hard to enjoy everything and I didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted because my fingers were too cold to snap them. I’m surprised my camera actually worked. There was one night that it absolutely refused to take a picture of a temple. It was that cold. We more or less ran through the Forbidden City trying our best to avoid the dirt that came with wind. I had heard about the dust storms before hand, but I didn’t think it would be that bad. There was a thin layer of dirt constantly sticking to the chap stick I kept putting on my lips to keep them from drying out. When I would breath, the little grains of dirt would fly into my mouth and for hours I could feel them gritting between my teeth. Yuck, yuck, yuck is all I have to say. Next time I am going to wear a surgical mask like some of the other visitors I saw that day.

The one thing that I never knew about the Forbidden City is how big it is. It’s massive. Just when you think it is about to end, there is yet another section to explore. I’m sure that there is a lot we didn’t see due to the fact we were trying our best to get back into the warmth of our dorm. It may have been more helpful to have had a tour guide since we didn’t know the history of the place. I think the next time we go I’ll fork up the money for it. Maybe by the time we get back they’ll be done with the construction and we’ll be able to see it without all the scaffolding. There was one particular building that they were working on and had built a wall up in front of it. They had painted the wall to look like it would have had it not been for the construction. I found it pretty funny.

During our two weeks we saw a few markets and some other touristy spots, but for the most part we stayed inside our dorm to save money. We found out not long after we got to Beijing that we would be taking a trip to Hong Kong because our last school had kept our important documents(ie visa and foreign expert card) too long and had let them expire. Because of the New Year approaching, we had to take a plane to Shenzhen and then cross the border into Hong Kong. It’s nice that we got to go see Hong Kong, but I had hoped that I if I went there, it would have been under different circumstances. So far, this little trip down south has been entirely on our bill causing us to burn through our savings and reimbursement of our plane ticket to China. As far as I know, our trip back up north is on our bill as well. Guess we’ve got to make the best out of bad situation. Seems I’ve been telling myself that a lot lately. I’ll get into that and our trip to Hong Kong in my next post. I’ll also post some more pictures for those of you curious as to what we have seen thus far. So, until next time. Laters.

This particular post was supposed to be put on here a long time ago, but for some reason it got saved as a draft and stayed like that for a few months. The picture above was taken from the top of the never ending staircase that we had to climb on a daily basis. Read on.

Compared to that of the normal middle class Chinese household, I live in the lap of luxury. It’s not my home back in the States that I am referring to(that’s quiet another lap of luxury all together), but instead, the apartment I live in now, here in China. Even though my apartment is fairly simple by American standards, it far surpasses what you can expect to find of the homes in and around Fuyang.

I only really come to realize this when I visit the homes of friends or students. It’s only then that I truly understand what I have and what others don’t because for the most part I’m in my own little comfort zone. I’m either in my nice warm apartment, relaxing and watching movies at school, or staying in nice hostels as Phil and I travel. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of how things were before I came over. Even then I had a grasp of how poor the poor really were, but being here and seeing it is different than one can really expect.

There are many well-to-do families in Fuyang and Hangzhou – I’ve seen their homes too – but a great many of the families have only a shell of what I live in. I’ve got hard wood floors. In some homes, a slab of pavement decorated with a rug may be the only thing in most homes. I’ve got a nice hot shower/sauna while many others just have a spout sticking out of the wall – if they’re lucky. Some just get a basin and wash cloth.

The basin in the above picture is exactly that and a little more. All of the people that live in the building across the way from us wash their clothes and dishes there. They even use it to bath. Yes, out in the open for everyone to see. They aren’t naked or anything. They wear as little as possible, wet their wash cloth and wash as best they can. And they do it with out complaint.

That’s enough preaching for one day though. I guess you just have to come here to understand.

I’m posting this as a test. If it works, I’ll post more. This is the first time in a long time that I have been able to add a picture.

Ah, Internet.

After much searching and aching to feel these little keys at my finger tips while ones and zeros clammer through the world wide web, I have at last located an Internet cafe. I never knew how reliant I was on the Internet until just now. I’m sitting next to two Chinese men. The one on my left is busy blowing up bad guys in World of War Craft and the other is downloading and searching for things I’m not quiet sure of. I do see some weird scantily clad Chinese cartoon characters on his screen . . .

Well, I guess you may want to know how our train ride went. I won’t keep you waiting any longer.

At about 4 pm on Tuesday, we began taking our luggage down the 40 some odd steps that led to our hostel room. Phil was nice and took down the bulk of it. I played the weak and dainty girl and carried down our back packs. They weren’t light, though. Each had a lap top computer and some other odds and ends that we deemed important enough to bring with us. We stood out like the white Americans that we are as we rolled our bright purple, orange and turquoise bags down the streets of Hangzhou. Thankfully, the train station was just a few streets away, but it felt like miles with all that weight. I’ve made a promise to myself to never bring so much junk with me if I ever go to another country for an extended amount of time again.

Our train was due to leave at 6:03pm, so we made it to the train station in plenty of time. It’s always better to be early than to be late, you know, and it can’t be more true than it is in China. As we rolled our bags into the soft seat waiting room, I crossed my fingers and prayed that the ticket takers wouldn’t forbid us to bring all our crap in. They didn’t say a word and I was very much relieved. We plopped a squat and waited the hour an half for our train. The time passed quickly, and soon we heard the call for our ride – train number Z10. I was very pleased to find out our platform was on level ground and that there were no more stairs to drag our crap up. We hopped on the train and found our seat without too much of a hassle. Again our bags caused chaos. The aisle was small, and everyone else wanted to get to their seat, too. We got a lot of stares as we tried picking up our bags one at a time and placing them on the racks above our heads. I am sure that they were wondering why we had so much stuff and where in the world we taking it. Of course, they had no idea that we weren’t tourist, but instead residents like themselves and that everything we had with us were our worldly possessions.

Tired and hot, we finally got everything settled and took our seats. It wasn’t long before two Chinese people came to their seats(directly across from us – like looking into a mirror). They took one look at us and said, giggling of course – “Foreigners” – in English like we weren’t there to hear them. They then looked at the rack above us and saw there was no room for their two little bags and had to find a place to put them. Come to find out, they were on their way to Beijing to study English(they knew some English already). I think that we couldn’t have sat by better people. Talking to them made the trip go so much smoother. The 14 hours was tough, though. 14 hours on any form on transportation is hard. I managed to get about 2 hours of shut eye towards the very end, but it wasn’t enough, really. I wish that we could have traveled during the day because the only thing that I could see out the window the entire time was the light of the buildings and cities that we past. I can’t imagine the scenery would have been spectacular. I rode on a train to Shanghai once, and the scenery didn’t change at all. It was just farms and run down houses for 2 hours and some change.

We arrived in Beijing at about 7:30, just like we were supposed to. Our two new friends asked if they could have a picture of us and we obliged. We said our goodbyes and waited for the train to empty before exiting ourselves. Before we could do this, four Chinese men appeared and asked us if they could help us take down our luggage. We said no, that we could do it, but they insisted. They took down the four suitcases and started rolling in down the aisle. I thought they may try to run off with it, so I kept up with them as best as we could. As soon as we got off the train and started walking a little bit, they stopped and asked for 200 RMB. Phil and I both laughed hysterically and demanded our luggage back. They dropped the price to 100 RMB and we still laughed saying we didn’t even want them to take it in the first place. The price got dropped again to 40 and that is when we decided to take our luggage back into our possession and head for the exit. They weren’t happy with us, but I didn’t care.

We got to the exit with no problems, and met the people that were supposed to pick us up. In the world wind of everything, I forgot to take our tickets back from the ticket taker, and as a result, lost our ability to be refunded, but hey, it could have been worse. It was cold outside, but I had expected worse. Our greeters didn’t say much to us. All I heard way Morning, Cook, and Phillip. I thought maybe they didn’t speak English. They took the majority of our luggage, so I was happy. The trip to our next destination was a bit of a weird one. We seemed to be going the backward ass way, and through the worse part of town. Once or twice I was sure that the person driving was lost. The thought crossed my mind that these weren’t the people that were supposed to pick us up and that we had been kidnapped in Beijing, but that was my imagination running away with me as it normally does. Heh.

We arrived at a sketchy looking gated community that reminded me of a military base. It was actually a college campus. Beijing International Studies University. WECL, the company we will be working for in Shenyang has a sister-school here. They dropped us off at the dorm building that would become our home for the next several days and made us happy by helping us take our luggage up another 40 stairs to the third floor. Let me remind you that up to this point no one had said squat to us in English, so we didn’t have a clue what was going on. We were starving and tired, and couldn’t decide what to do first. There was a place at the front desk to buy drinks, so I got some liquids in me to hopefully quench my hunger. When Phil and I stepped out front to see where exactly we were staying a Chinese woman came out with our room number 310A and started speaking Chinese that we couldn’t understand, but we knew that she wanted us back in our room. My first thought was that we were under house arrest or something like that. Yeah, my imagination running off with me again. Heh.

We went back to the room thinking that maybe we had a telephone call, but the phone never rang. I laid down on the bed trying to figure what in the world was going on and why our room was so cold. This is the point in which I started to panic – but just a little. When I am hungry, cold, and tired, I am just not a happy person. I was all three of these, so you can imagine what I was like. Soon there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find two Chinese men holding a sink. Apparently, our sink was faulty, and they were there to fix it. A few minutes later, we had a new sink, and they left. I was too tired to care what was going to happen – whether the room would start warming itself up or how we would get food – so I did the only thing that seemed like a good idea. I slept. We both slept.

We slept for several hours and awoke to our bellies threatening to start eating anything our eyes saw. It was time to get out and find something of substance before we died. I didn’t care if the guards at the gate refused to let us out – I was going anyway. It wasn’t a problem, thankfully, and the guards let us out without even a word. And what did we see right outside the gate? The most beautiful site to a starving person . . . a McDonald’s.

More or less, we ate, we walked around a few blocks and came back home. And that was a first day in Beijing. Today is our third, and nothing that spectacular has happened. We went to the Beijing Zoo. All most all of the animals were put up because it was freezing outside. On the up side, we only spent 30 RMB to get in, so I didn’t feel ripped off or anything. Also, we went to a pedestrian street and had some yummy street food. I had some fried banana that tasted like a funnel cake. And my favorite – fruit on a stick with sugar drizzled over top.

And what is in store for us now? We will be in Beijing until the the 8th or 9th of February. Then we have to go to Hong Kong to get ourselves legal. That’s a long story; not as long as this one . . . but I’ll leave it to another day.

We’ve made it to Hangzhou in one piece, but it wasn’t easy. Of course, nothing in China is easy. And I mean nothing.

Our trip began by carrying 6 pieces of rather heavy luggage down six flights of stairs. We each took a piece down one flight at a time. Even though it was cold enough to see my breath, by the time we were done I was hot enough to take off all of my winter clothes. After catching our breathes at the foot of the stairs and waving goodbye to our lovely abode, we began dragging all of our suitcases to the front gates of the school. We ran into some Chinese folk on the way. In Chinese, they asked us where we were going. I think they were a bit surprised by how much crap we had with us. We left our stuff at the gate so that we could go give our key and gym pass(which we never used – hence why I am a fatty now) to Mr. Zhou. He wasn’t there and the entire English office was asleep. We had to poke Peter, Mr. Zhou’s man servant, and give him our stuff. He looked completely out of it and I think that he may have forgotten how to speak English there for a moment.

Once that was done, we pulled our suitcases up the only hill in Fuyang and down the other side. We didn’t have to wait long for a taxi. It was a bit of a chore getting all of our stuff in the taxi, but we somehow managed. Two in the trunk. Two in the back seat. And our backpacks on our lap. We’ve both gotten pretty good at saying how to get to the bus station that takes us to Hangzhou, so that wasn’t a problem. There is almost always a bus there. It is a popular route, so we more or less jumped right on. At first Phil thought that he had left all of his money at home, and that gave me a heart attack, but he found it. Thankfully.

The hard part began when we actually got to Hangzhou.

It didn’t take us too long to find a taxi. We flagged one down and he asked where we were going. I showed him the address, but he didn’t seem to know where it was. He called a few people, but still didn’t seem to know. I tried telling him that I knew where it was and that I could direct him. He understood a little of what I said, but it didn’t look like we were getting anywhere. Phil tried putting two of our suitcases in the trunk, but only one would fit. The taxi driver already had something back there. So, we then tried putting it in the back seat. That didn’t make him happy. Phil threw one of mine back there anyway and shut the door. For some reason, the guy didn’t want to take us both even though we could have fit everything in like we did in our last taxi. I let the taxi driver look at the card one last time and gave it to Phil. It seemed that we were going to have to separate to get to where we needed to be. I got in the front seat, closed the door, and off we were. A part of me thought that the taxi driver was trying to kidnap me and had been playing dumb the entire time just to get me alone. Thankfully, that was not the case. He did manage to get me to the PSB. When I got all of my stuff out of the taxi, I made sure to look at my watch. If Phil wasn’t there in the next 15 mintues – I was going to flip out. It wasn’t too long before another taxi showed up and Phil appeared. Whew.

I grabbed the receipts that we had gotten a week before and ran up to the second floor of the PSB while Phil watched the luggage. I got in line at one place, but was soon directed to another line. I went to that line, and was told something in Chinese I didn’t understand. The girl in line next to me said that she told me to wait for a minute. So I did. A few minutes passed, but nothing happened. I waved my receipts again to get someones attention, and was told to take a seat – that someone would call my name. My first thought was, ” These people don’t even know my name!!” I sat down anyway. A few minutes passed, and then a few more, and finally I couldn’t take the fact that 50 other Chinese people had gotten in line and received their documents. I marched back up to the counter and demanded that I get our passports. The lady didn’t say a whole bunch, but when she got done stapling some weird papers together – she ripped the papers out of my hand and stalked off. Not even 5 seconds later she had both passports in hand, told me how much they cost, I paid and out the door I went. It was so frustrating that it took that long to get something that simple.

We had to get another taxi to get to our hostel for the night. I flagged down maybe 5 or 6 taxis and they each told me “no” they wouldn’t take me. There was no way we could roll our stuff there. By this point, I just wanted to scream. It was cold, drizzling, and I was hungry. More taxis went by, and none would agree to take us. Phil flagged one down, and even though the guy was confused on where we wanted to go – he let us put all of our stuff in his taxi. We made it to the hostel, as you can tell since you are reading this. We were so happy that we tipped the taxi driver and said thank you about 100 times.

If only that was the end of the story, but it isn’t. We got a room on the 3rd floor and there was no elevator. We were lucky, though. There was this little Chinese girl that insisted on helping us take it up stairs. We told her we could do it, but she still insisted. With all of our powers combined, we got everything to our room. I gave the gril10 RMB even though she probably deserved more. I just didn’t have any other small bills on me. She said thank you, and off she went.

For dinner we went to Pizza Hut and had dessert at TCBY. It was yummy. Ever so yummy. After that we came home(hostel) and crashed.

The real humdinger will be later today when we go to the train station. As long as they let us take all of our stuff on board, it shouldn’t be a problem. But like I said before. Nothing in China is easy. Nothing. At least if all goes semi-well, I will have 13 hours to calm down before we hit the next leg of our journey . . . Beijing.

– G

It’s official. Both mine and Phil’s obligation to the next generation of Fuyang has come to an end. Today was Phil’s last day, but I was lucky, and was able to stop teaching a week ago. Today I ran down and picked up my last chunk of change from my school and said my final farewells. Phil will get his tomorrow.

We’ve pretty much finished everything that needs to be done in order to move. We just need to pick up our passports and new visa from the PSB office in Hangzhou and possibly send one more package up north so that we don’t have to carry so much with us. We sent one today to our new school. It weighed about 44 lbs and only cost 110 RMB. That is about $14. If only that is how much it cost to ship things back to America. Going from Fuyang to Shenyang would be like going from Columbia to California. There is no way a 44 lbs package would cost 14 bucks to send in a million years. A few days ago, we sent two packages back home filled with some odds and ends that we have purchased in our travels. The biggest box weighed about 20 lbs and cost $204. We did send this the fast way, but still . . . that’s a lot of money and hurt our wallets. Mine is still crying about it. I just hope that it gets home. Apparently, they did not know where to send it even though they had all of the information on the box. They said that the zip code was wrong, and we had to repeatedly tell them that we lived there and knew our post code like we know our names. Of course, this was all said to people who really couldn’t understand us. Thankfully, there was a random man there who spoke a little English, and without him I don’t think we would have figured out what in the world was going on.

I don’t really know what else to say. My mind has felt tired and uninspired for awhile now. Everything I type seems so forced. Maybe it is that I can’t really put into words what I feel or express what it is that I am experiencing here. That is frustrating. Hopefully, it will pass, and I can resume my normal writing of this blog for the few people who do frequent it. The Internet is slowly getting repaired but it isn’t perfect yet. I am going to give it a while longer before I attempt to post pictures. I really, really hate posting pictures and not having it work after spending a lot of time on them.

Well, I’m signing off. I’m going to play Fable until I turn blue in the face. Tomorrow we finish or rather start packing. I can see Beijing on the horizon. It won’t be long now.

Goodbye Fuyang. Nice knowing you.

All was not wasted at Yongxing. Most of my students didn’t give a lick about English and could have cared even less that I traveled 7000 some odd miles to come teach them, but there were at least 2 students that made my teaching worth all the pain and agony I had to endure these last 4 months. Let me give you a prime example. Below you will find an email that one my students sent me a few days ago. Grey is a very bright and wonderful girl and will be going on to High School next year. She was one of the few students that would stay after class to talk to me, and would ask me to help her with her English. The email just about made it cry. The one thing it made me remember though, is that teaching is about the one or two people that reach and care and all the rest don’t matter. Read on and see what I mean. I won’t be posting in the next few days because we will be traveling, but I will try to post about our travels soon as well as some pictures.

Miss Cook,
When you told me that you may leave Fuyang,I really feel frustrated.This term I have joined many competitions and English speech.But do you know,when I was in primary school,my English was very poor,my English teachers didn’t like me, it made me sad.When I was in junior six, I attended
a foreign language school entrance examination,because of my poor English, I was failed in that exam.From then on ,I made up my mind to learn English well.
Time flies,now I am in junior three,sometimes I thought maybe I wouldn’t practise English more ,because of the arduous task of learning,but I didn’t.
Since you came to our school,you regards me as your friends,you tell me a lot about English and English culture,I think you are not only are good teacher,but also a good friends.Thank you ,Miss Cook.
Perhaps we will not meet in the future,but I will still remember the wonderful time we spent together,I wish you to have nice days,wonderful weeks,purple years and a successful life.
Best wishes from Grey

Makes you smile doesn’t it? Emails like this make teaching worth while. I’ll have to print it out and frame it and read it when things get tough up north. It will make me remember what teaching is all about when I start to forget again.

I complain a lot on this blog, and for that I apologize, but I sometimes think that if I keep it all bottled up inside, I may just go berserk, and find myself sitting in the dark depths of a Chinese prison for whatever it is I did in the heat of uncontrolled insanity.

But I do have some fluffy news that may warm your hearts.

On most days, I take the bus to and from school. It’s convenient when I am not in a hurry(or freezing my little tushy off) and even better than that, it’s cheap. I only have to shell out a mere one yuan for each bus I get on, and I only have to get on two of them(that’s just 24 cents if you’re curious) to get to me to the school. I wish there was a direct bus, but hey, you can’t have it all.

Just recently though, Fuyang got new buses. They’re much better than the ones that they used to have. They’re bigger actually, and have two doors so that everyone is not trying to get on at the same time that everyone else is trying to get off. They’re even so modern now that they have invested in a coin box that sits by the door. If you only have big bills on you, there is still the ever trusty person(I can’t think of a name for it) that sits closest to the door and will break them for you. I’ve seen one hundred dollar bills broken before. It’s funny watching the person(again the name for this occupation escapes me) digging through his/her change purse for 99 yuan in change. The most I’ve ever broken is a 10.

On the number 8 bus, the one that everyone swore wouldn’t take me anywhere near my school, there is one of the nicest Chinese people I’ve ever met. She speaks maybe 4 words of English, so we’ve never really had an in-depth conversation, but I’ve always felt that if we could understand each other we would be the best of friends. I have no idea what her name is.

She is always smiling. Always. Every time she sees me getting on the bus she says hello, smiles at me, and waves. For the few minutes that I am in her presence, she looks at me and smiles some more. When it is time for me to get off the bus, she waves, smiles, and usually says bye-bye, but just recently I heard her say see you tomorrow.

Yesterday, I decided I would try to talk to her in Chinese and try to let her know that I would be leaving Fuyang. It didn’t work very well. She didn’t understand my awful Chinese, but it didn’t matter. She kept on smiling at me. After drawing some pictures and repeating myself a few times, I think I finally got her to understand that I was moving to Shenyang.

She will be one of the few people that I will miss when I go. I don’t even know if I will see her again because there are many number 8 buses and I never know which one she is on. I always come across her by chance and only realize that she’s there when I hear her familiar voice as I put my one yuan in the box by the door.