As I finally sit down to write this post, I can’t help but ask myself why I’ve been putting it off for so long. I have been at home in Massachusetts since December 7th, and over the past month my experiences in China have morphed from being my present existence into a solid part of my past. Maybe it’s because I knew somewhere in my head that once I write down that studying abroad in China is officially over, it’s really over. Once I share that with you, there’s no pretending that I will wake up back in Beijing any time soon. Maybe it’s because even though my study abroad experience is over, I still have a lot of figuring out to do.
Numerous friends and family members have asked me throughout the holidays, “So, how was China?!” Though it is a very valid question, and one often asked with much excitement and anticipation of the interesting answers I will spill, I feel that the magnitude of the answer in no way fits this little question. I spent six months of my life in China. SIX months. It is really hard to condense and distill all of my adventures, studies, and crazy China experiences into a bite-size, yet somehow fulfilling answer. It’s like the brownie bites my mom buys from the grocery store: it’s a nice idea, making brownies into these little pieces, but frankly, eating one just does not cut it; you really just want to eat a whole brownie anyway and thus end up eating five brownie bites (or at least I do). Brownie bites aside, my point is that there’s no real way to sum up what China was for me. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying.
I cannot predict how my China experience will fit into the patchwork of my life in the future, but for this break at home, it has felt strangely like a dream that I woke up from and landed back in Massachusetts (think Wizard of Oz-style, Dorothy finally coming back to Kansas). Part of this may be due to the extreme language switch; my whole world in Beijing was in Mandarin, with little bits of English thrown in, whereas my world at home is all in English with little bits of Chinese thrown in (mostly when people ask me to “say something in Chinese!”–it’s funny to think that I can say whatever I want and tell them that it means whatever I want it to and they will believe me–but mostly I’m honest). Naturally, because of the language switch, I often feel like I fell into a time warp while I was in China and am now re-emerging back on the English-speaking side. But a very important aspect of my life post-China is figuring out how exactly to incorporate and use my language skills in my daily life, where built-in opportunities for speaking Mandarin are (obviously) much fewer. After one month of functioning in English, some of my Mandarin is already gone. I’m hoping that Georgetown classes, a language buddy, keeping up with the friends made at ACC, and emailing with teachers and host family will keep me on my toes and help me at least maintain my language level, if not improve. I also have another foreign language challenge to surmount. Let me share one last China story with you.
On one of my last weekend nights in Beijing, I was out on the town with some friends, standing in line, waiting forever and a day at the coat check. Since I was getting bored and impatient, not to mention cold from the frigid air that was coming through the steadily opening and closing door, I distracted myself by listening in on various conversations around me (a thing I often did in China to test my listening comprehension).
“Ta zai nar? Wo xuyao ta zai zher! Ta bu neng likai!” “Where is he? I need him here! He can’t leave!”
“Mei wenti, wo gei ta fa duanxin ba.” “No problem, I’ll send him a text.”
“Est-ce qu’elle peut parler Francais?” “Can she speak French?”
“Je ne sais pas, mais on peut demander.” “I dunno, but we can ask.”
I had overheard parts of a conversation in French between two young men, and now they were talking about me. I could understand what they were saying, and pretty soon they were directly asking me questions in French. I answered:
“Oui, je parle Francais…” “(in French) Yes, I speak French…”
“…Danshi xianzai wo de fawen feichang cha!” “(in Chinese)…but now my French is horrible!”
Let’s just say my French is pretty rusty now. I think all that Chinese broke my French. New challenge: juggle improving two languages at once!
Thank you to everyone for following my adventures these past six months. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as I have! Best wishes to everyone heading abroad; I hope it will be as wonderful an experience for you as it has been for me 🙂
