Jessica Ralston's Blog

To Do List Before I Leave China (In No Particular Order)

• Pack.
• Travel to Dandong. Wave hello to North Korea, go to the Hushan Great Wall, have some good Korean barbecue.
• Clean the apartment. Top to bottom.
• Take and print pictures of each of my classes. Write my e-mail on the back, give to students on the last day of their classes with me.
• Get the bulk of the timeline business of my novel done and out of the way. That part takes up a lot of floor space. Neither an airplane nor my parent’s house have that kind of room.
• Did I mention pack? This also includes sorting through all the crap I’ve amassed over the year (souvenirs, cheap books, silly tourist T-shirts) and deciding what comes home with me, what gets thrown out, what gets passed on to the next teacher.
• Write up detailed class descriptions for each of my classes and one one ones for the next teacher’s reference.
• Buy more chopsticks, little tchotchke things, and some of the non-perishable foodstuffs that I want to bring home (date flakes, tomato and egg convenient noodles, baijiu, sachima… I’m pretty sure there’s something missing from this list).
• Do laundry. My mother would kill me if I came back with dirty laundry. ETA1: S1 informed me that this is included in packing. Okay, then.
• ETA2: Did I mention WORK? Yes, I still have classes in between all of this. Sigh.

There’s too much to do! I have about two weeks left here, and traveling to Dandong is looking less and less likely. That’s upsetting because I really want to see North Korea (from the Chinese side of the Yalu River, but still) and the easternmost section of the Great Wall.

…Instead of sitting here writing this blogpost, I really should be writing these items on a piece of paper and start doing them.

Yeah.

Today, October 20, is my eight month-iversary in China!

*throws confetti and blows a party horn*

It has definitely been a roller coaster of emotions over the past eight months. There have been times when I wanted to throw the towel in and say, “I’m going home, contract be damned.” Those feelings were sparked at multiple points by homesickness, frustration with the job, frustration with the roommates (who are also co-workers), and frustration with China and its culture. But, I told myself that I had committed to this (both publicly and personally) and I would stick with it to the end.

Then of course, there were other times when I was having a blast and sure, I missed home, but at that moment, everything was going pretty well. Although, I have never, in all my time here, said, “Oh, this is definitely a place I’d like to live.” I have never, ever said that about China.

The job is all sorts of rewarding, just like I had hoped it would be when I started. I have come to know my students (the ones I’ve had since February), on a personal level and I’ve become rather attached to them, particularly a group of 7-year-olds whose first English class ever was with me. When they started in March, the could barely say, “My name is ____,” properly, but now they’re asking me what my favorite food is, what my favorite color is and what my favorite animal is. It’s very gratifying to witness this transformation. I also have a class of about six 10-year-olds, and their English is good enough that they can actually argue (in a good-natured manner) with me. They happen to be my favorite class.

One of the biggest lessons I learned as an exchange student to Brasil in high school have come into play here: if you’re feeling homesick, stop talking to people from home, and instead, keep busy. Go out and see and do things, make plans with people, take a day trip. When I’m feeling particularly sad, I make plans with the assistants, who I’ve become quite close with. This type of job can get lonely sometimes, but you just have to make the best of it, and take the good with the bad.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been eight months (although I bet if you ask my mother, she’ll tell you different), but if the changing leaves are any indication, it has been. I am so excited for the next four months, and the months after that!

The sun rising over a flight of stairs at the Mutianyu Great Wall.

When I was making my west along the Great Wall a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but think of all the feet that had tread the wall hundreds of years ago, and how I was retracing their footsteps. The thought didn’t occur to me until I was in a guardhouse and had an odd experience with my camera and battery (I watch Ghost Hunters, so what?), but when I started the climb again, and I found these stairs, I realized that soldiers had climbed these stairs on the lookout for the Mongols hundreds of years before the first tourist set foot on it. It was awe inspiring, just as I think seeing the pyramids in Egypt would be, and seeing the Parthenon in Greece.

The day we climbed it we were lucky: we went early to avoid the wave of tourists (it was Chinese National Day), and the sun hadn’t burned off the fog that rested in the green valleys. When you come up over the rise of the first big hill and catch the view, it can be breathtaking. The Wall stretches literally for miles, following the ridges and dips of the mountains. It’s so…vast.

I found it interesting that a civilization would build this wall to keep people out, and for me, that rang true of present day China, in a way.

They do their best to keep news and world events out, while keeping their citizens uninformed. My mind jumps to the Chinese people being mute (no freedom of speech or freedom of the press here) and dumb (news coming in is either censored or tweaked to be more palatable to the CCP).

It makes me wonder about the quality and quantity of the Occupy Wall Street protests. I imagine they say something along the lines of, “See? This is what a democratic, capitalist society brings you. Do you really want this?” so as not to incite similar protests. This is why they block international social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Google+.

I often wonder if they know they’re being oppressed, but most of them seem pretty content to just live their lives, especially older people. I imagine younger people in the bigger cities like Beijing or Shanghai are slightly more informed than the average Chinese citizen, but they have the tech savvy to get around the blocks.

I didn’t mean for this post to turn into something slightly political, but the topic has been on my mind quite a bit recently, because my NaNo novel is about a government not unlike China, that censors websites for much the same reason as the CCP. It was originally meant to be a pretty picture to look at, but I’m not apologizing for what the post has turned into.

Pretty picture though! If you ever have the chance, go to The Great Wall, it’s beautiful. And, it’ll make you think.

I’m seriously considering going on a Yangtze River cruise for National Week in October instead of going back to Beijing.

I’ve been researching my options, and if I can do it for the same or less than I did Thailand last month, I’m doing the river cruise.

Or, I could just DO the river cruise, cost be damned, because when am I ever going to have an opportunity like this again?

Although, considering the fact that the Chinese government doesn’t even know when its own holidays are (they don’t know until about a month beforehand, why, I don’t know), this might prove problematic in the pricing of flights from Shenyang to Chongqing, and Yichang to Shenyang.

The Winter Special cruise with Victoria Cruises is super cheap during the New Year. That would be fun.

Decisions, decisions.