And so the last day came and went and I find myself sitting in the Denver airport.  Earlier while camping on the ground I saw a white person coming toward me and tried to think of how I knew this person.  Then I remembered there were white people everywhere.  Turns out he was going to the bathroom.  There will definitely be an adjustment period, but for the moment I’m simply too overwhelmed and non-functional to begin processing.  It just feels like another trip and at the end of which I will be back in China, where I started.  The reality will hit sometime, and I’ll be interested to see what that experience turns out to be like.

When I decided four years ago to go to China, I had figured on simply a year of going abroad, having a good experience, and coming back.  I didn’t have the intention of making an entirely new life for myself, of the scores of people I would meet, the good friends both American and Chinese (and even Irish) that came out of these past years, and the opportunity it gave for me to grow in ways that won’t show on my resume.  I wouldn’t have imagined that the characters and the language that confronted me with confusion when trying to simply buy a beer would become so second nature that the situation became surprising when I couldn’t understand what was before me.  I never once thought that China and Asia would dig themselves so deeply into me and who I have become.

My coworkers invited me to join them for a potluck lunch.  I haven’t elaborated much on my coworkers this year, as I have been engaged in other things but I have found a few of them to be quite nice, intelligent, enjoyable people.  My contribution was mashed potatoes, which thankfully turned out quite edible.  They of course make wonderful Chinese food and pass it off as just halfway decent fare.  With the three of them and one of their husbands, we ate and talked, mostly in Chinese with occasional diversions to English when my Chinese wasn’t quite able.  The precise interactions, the precise sorts of things I think I will miss most are wrapped up in those kinds of moments.

Like the potluck, I think I’ll miss the days spent hiking or walking in parks with friends, playing mah jiang with Miki and Michael, the evening parties at Brian’s apartment, the freedom of the open road, the opportunity to not only travel but to intimately learn about and to a degree become a part of a place so different from home.  From time to time I’ve tried to explain to people who have asked that Asia and America are different enough that you can’t simply adapt your normal life at home but that you have to create a second one suited to the new environment.  I think that finding a way to integrate these two sides of myself will be the main challenge to coming back.

During the last night in China I had dinner out with Xinyu and then took the bus home.  It had started to rain when we left the restaurant and then by the time I got on the bus had grown into a full-blown thunderstorm.  In the dark of the night the heavy drops fell against the window panes and the sky flashed brilliant pink, streaked with electric gashes across the city sky.  The thunder ripped loud peels out, echoing over the Chinese running between cover or shuffling their feet quickly underneath their umbrellas.  At that point I finally knew that for all the activity of the past few weeks, the end had come.  In my head was a song by Teresa Tang, an old Taiwan singer, with the same name as the title of this entry.  In essence, it simply means having too much to express than words could possibly satisfy.

I’m glad to be starting grad school.  It was indeed time for a new stage of life to begin, and I don’t think a change in scenery will be bad in the least.  I think Vancouver will make for an easier return than a lot of other places, while being something both new and familiar in several respects.  Many students and friends in China asked me before I left if I would come back.  I told them I hope so, that someday I can come back to China with a real job, doing something  that gives me the chance to build, to rescue Chinese cities from some of their more destructive planning habits.  In the end though I told them exactly what I said to myself.  I don’t know.