I’ve been somewhat inactive the past few weeks on the blog.  This is in part owing to the current firewall block of Facebook in China, which I’ve been using to host my photos.  The other component of this is that there has been little big news of note.  The days and then weeks have gone by quietly, with no major activities.  The National Day holiday came and went.  For Tori, this meant a week in the Philippines.  For me, in my ever-advancing age, it meant quiet, peaceful days in Shenzhen with a short jaunt to Hong Kong with some foreigner buddies.  As such, the content of this entry will be a bit more low-key.  As evidenced by the paragraph I spent writing about that fact.

Getting to National Day, I went to Hong Kong with 3 of my American buddies who stayed in Shenzhen as well.  Two had never been to Hong Kong, and I had by far racked up the most time in the city, so served as a de facto tour guide (a job that I have no problem doing) and generally serving as the ‘map guy’.  However jaded one can get with Hong Kong, it really is beautiful to sit on the harbor at night with a beer and look across to the skyline of the island.  Few places in the world can boast the truly unique sense of place that Hong Kong can.  This particular trip included a trip to Lantau Island to see the Tiantan Buddha, perched atop a hill, the largest Buddha in Hong Kong and (I think) the largest seated Buddha in the world.  Needless to say, he was big.  And swarmed with tourists, which considerably hurts the temple experience.

Back in Shenzhen, life returned to normal with classes resuming and my kids all answering my question of “what did you do for your holiday” with a mixture of sleep, basketball, computer games, and homework.  They are a remarkably consistent bunch, at least from their answers.  My roommate was the cause of some excitement as he became violently ill in Saigon and missed his flight back to China to go to the hospital.  After a night, he was good enough to fly home and the particularly virulent strain of food poisoning he fell privy to seems to be gone now.  Let it be a lesson though; it pays to attend to what you eat.  That’s true here or there and it reminded me how well I’ve managed so far when it comes to tainted food and drink and the good fortune to have mostly avoided it.

 That said, it has not all been a success.  I had a stomach bug that caught me unawares, likely from one of the street restaurants I frequent.  At its peak, I was curled up on the bathroom floor at 1am aching to throw up, sweating, and feverish.  Sounds bad perhaps, because it felt bad.  Haven’t been so sick in ages, and once I finally did empty out my stomach I felt heaps better and have mended without issue since.  Nevertheless, it is not a case of ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ and I can only hope I don’t repeat it.  Ever.  So don’t ever let me tell you China is just fun and sunshine.

In the meantime, since I’ve felt better, I’ve been building up my friendships and acquaintences in the neighborhood.  The milk tea kiosk owner and I are now basketball buddies, and we’ve hung out while shooting hoops with the factory workers around here.  It still amazes me how this game can bring people together the world over in such a simple way.  And its also a lot of fun for me, because here, instead of being, let’s say, ‘below average’, I do quite well.  Being taller and stronger than 90% of the people I play with and against may help that.  I’ve also spent more time with people in my school, such as one of my school guards who was working out on the track the same time I was tonight.  He speaks a little English so we chatted while jogging and it felt good to think that the time I have invested, so far, in learning Chinese has paid dividends.

When it comes to the Chinese, I’m still quite happy to be here.  This past weekend involved the summiting of Wutongshan, the 3000 foot mountain that marks the highest point in Shenzhen.  I’ve been up here before, and this time I went with Eric, another foreigner.  The ascent was just us, at first powering up the road before hitting the last 900 feet climb of stairs.  This section involved far more rests than the previous bit.  At the top, we wowed Chinese people by being foreign and were asked to pose in pictures.  This then led to conversation and an invitation to join a group hiking down.

Eric has taken, I think, 3 years of Chinese or more at home.  So even though it is his first year here, he can hold his own conversationally, at my level or better, with the Chinese.  Likewise I was able to converse, so we got heaps of speaking practice as we walked down the mountain with a group of about 7 Chinese folks.  At the bottom, we cemented the new friendships with the ritual exchanging of phone and QQ numbers to further stay in contact.  My sincere hope is to now have a group of Chinese people to go out to KTV with.

Above are the smaller vignettes from the time I’ve been back.  In a broader sense, there are really two things I take from the experience this fall, as of now.  The first is the undeniable warmth and eagerness of Chinese hospitality.  This has been and remains a constant and I hope I can take a fraction of that home someday to the States. They go out of their way to make you feel welcome and are quick to invite you along and encouraging when you stumble through the language.

The second thing has been how much more I get from this country by being able to talk in Chinese with people.  It motivates me to remain strident in learning Chinese as well as practicing and meeting people whenever an opportunity arises.  It excites me to think I have nearly a year yet to improve my Chinese before the contract ends and that whatever comes down the road, be it returning home or a longer stay in the Middle Kingdom, I intend to see this language through to fluency.