Omgosh…I can’t believe today is over, and I’m going back to America tomorrow. It seems like I’ve been here forever, but at the same time it feels like this time has gone by so fast. I’ve just started developing my comfort zone here, and started getting the hang of things & being able to speak in Chinese to get around and stuff, and now I’m leaving it all….it’s such a strange feeling. It feels like it’s not happening, like I won’t really be going home tomorrow. But my bags are all packed, my class is finished, and I’ve said goodbye to everyone. I’m really excited to go home, but at the same time I’m really sad. I know there are so many things I’ll miss about Shanghai, even though I won’t recognize them while I’m here. Wow…words can’t really describe what I’m feeling right now. It’s such a mixture of excitement, happiness, sadness, anxiety, and so much else.
Today we took our test for our Chinese class, which determines whether we pass the class or not. It was ridiculously easy. I’m not even exaggerating; the teacher made it super easy because so many people were freaking out and complaining about how they weren’t ready. But no one has been taking the class as seriously as I have, and no one has been keeping up with the daily lessons, because no one actually NEEDS to pass the test except for me. So, the test ended up being really easy. For the oral part of the exam, she just had us read a dialogue from the book. Yes, READ it. Just straight from the book. Our book has pinyin, so we were just reading the pinyin. It was so dumb, I don’t even think you can consider it an oral exam. The written part was a bit harder – it had 10 Chinese characters to translate to pinyin, then 10 pinyin to translate to Chinese characters, then 10 sentences to translate to Chinese, then 3 sentences of writing whatever we wanted as long as it was in Chinese. It was easy, though, because all the characters and sentences were from the first part of the class, which was all the basics. She didn’t test us on any of the more recent, more difficult stuff. Anyways, I think everyone except for 2 people passed the test, so we were all happy.
After class, a bunch of us went to eat lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant. It was super fun, but also really sad, because it was our LAST lunch together! :( I’m gonna miss my Norwegian, Japanese, French, Indonesian, Korean, Finnish, and Dutch friends.
After lunch, Geneva, Joanna, and I went to Wanda Plaza to buy some last minute gifts. I bought some snacks to bring home and we also bought a gift box of cookies/crackers for the Wus. After that, we went to the fabric market to pick up our clothes that we had made on Sunday. Omgosh, I LOVE my dresses. They are SUPER cute :) I am quite happy with them. I actually left thinking I should have bought more….but, there’s always next time I come to Shanghai :)
After THAT, we came back to the hotel and Raintree came over to say goodbye to us. We spent a little while with her, trying to practice our Chinese and everything she taught us to talk to her. Hahaha, it was pretty bad. But very funny. I’ll miss her so much..she said she doesn’t have a lot of international friends, but she’d like to keep in contact with us.
Right after THAT, we met with the Wus and ate dinner with them. As always, it was delicious food with quite enjoyable company. I love hanging out with them, even though I can’t speak with them that well. But there’s something about them…they’re always so patient and so warm that I have no problem just sitting in silence with them. Anyways, at dinner, I think me and Joanna were able to communicate with them a lot better than at the first dinner, because we were able to have actual conversations (or at least longer ones than before). They even said that our Chinese improved a lot since we’d last seen them (about 2 weeks ago). It was a really good dinner with really good food, and, with a bit of sneaky handed-ness, I was able to pay the bill before they were. Man, you know I’m becoming a true Chinese when I can outmaneuver my hosts and pay the bill.
Sigh, I’m going to miss everyone so much….i can’t believe how attached I grew to this place in just 2 months. I’m seriously considering coming back next summer again, not for this program again, but just to visit the people I met again. I’m going to miss them so much….i wish I could get really good at Chinese really fast, so that I could write them letters and things without such a limited vocabulary. I was trying to write a card to the Wus in Chinese, but it was really hard to say everything I wanted to say because I had such a limited Chinese vocabulary. I hope that this motivates me to study Chinese when I go back to the States.
Tomorrow we’re going to class at 9am again, but only to say goodbye to our classmates and teachers. We’re only staying for a little bit, then Uncle & Auntie Wu will pick us up to go to the airport at 11am. And then, I’m on the way home! Sigh, I can’t believe it’s really happening. Goodbye, Shanghai! 我会想你！
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