Saying Goodbye

June 29, 2013

 

I had a great last day of teaching, with many of the students telling me they will miss me, and that they hope to see me in the U.S. when they come to school.  Though I was only with them for two weeks, I will miss these kids.

 

Chatting with the students on my last day of class

Every place I visit and stay for a while finds a space in my heart, including China – Changsha and all its beauty.  I know I will miss this place and all of the fascinating experiences it has offered.  Despite the stress and culture shock, I have learned a great deal and met some really wonderful people with whom I hope to stay in touch.  The food is delicious, the countryside beautiful, massages fantastic, tea wonderful, and there are some really great people.

Chrysanthemum tea & melon at the spa

Friday evening Tina, Willy, and I went to a foot massage, compliments of the school.  Jacqueline (one of the TAs) and Duo took us to a place near the school.  A very relaxing evening, with the massage and dinner to follow.  I do enjoy the foot massage especially because it is a fun experience for the whole group to experience together.  We all sit in the same room, with a TV (which I am not a fan of – I prefer the relaxing music) and have the same massage done at the same time.  They bring us bottomless tea (my favorite is the chrysanthemum tea) and watermelon to enjoy during our massage.  A foot massage is not only for your feet, but also the entire body.  They start on your face and head with pressure points, then move to your arms, legs, then feet.  They end up with your back.  At certain points during the massage they sort of slap the part of your body they are massaging (I think to relax it and get the blood flowing there), at one point the ladies that were massaging Jacqueline and I were doing this rhythmic pattern in unison on our legs.  It was kind of funny and I couldn’t help but laugh a little. 

Deciding what to order

The dinner that followed was exciting for me, as we went to a Chinese/Middle-Eastern restaurant – bringing me back to my wonderful memories of Israel.  The food was fantastic.  We had lamb kabobs, lotus root with chestnuts, a chicken & noodle dish, a vegetable dish, green tea, yogurt with white raisins, and some fried potatoes with spices.  I was going to order some fermented horse milk to drink, but all they had was the big bottle – I was not ready for that commitment!

Lamb kabobs!

Tea & yogurt with white raisins

This morning I packed up my bags and moved to Duo and Leigh’s apartment (located about 10 minutes from the school by the hospital) to stay until I leave on Monday morning.  Laurel is flying in tonight, so she will be staying in the room that I had.  I enjoyed staying at their place.  It was much more peaceful, light, open, calm, and removed from the stress of the school.  I didn’t have to hear the class “music” all day.  I don’t remember if I mentioned that earlier, but in Chinese schools instead of bells they play music (ours was piano music) over the loudspeakers that you can hear all the way on the other end of campus.  It was cool at first – for the first day, then it got old quickly.  That said, it was nice to get away from that for a while.




Students who took us to lunch

A few of the students had asked me on Friday if they could take Tina and myself out to lunch on Saturday, they wanted to take us to one of their favorite places which is near the school.  I agreed to it and we met up with them at noon during their mid-day break.  There were 7 girls who escorted us (Willy came also) to a restaurant called “Fire Palace.”  This was an interesting restaurant, in which the servers pushed around carts of food, and the customers point to the dishes they would like to order.  It was entertaining to see them go to town asking for items from the carts that the servers pushed around. 

Lunch with the students

Century egg

The food they ordered was interesting.  A lot of sweet items, a bunch of sweetened rice, a green starchy blob which must have been mochi (a Japanese rice cake), fresh watermelon juice, and a few other unique dishes.  We had “century eggs” also known as a pidan, also known as a preserved egg.  These are common in China. I had tried this once before, it is made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months.  Through the process, the yolk becomes a dark green/grey, with a creamy consistency and an odor of sulfur and ammonia, while the white becomes dark brown, translucent jelly with hardly any flavor. The worst food I had was the pig feet!  It was all bone, fat and some slimy skin.  I asked the girls what I was supposed to eat from it –they told me to eat the skin!  The tiny bite I had was not pleasant – worth the experience though.  That was my first meal since arriving in China in which I didn’t particularly like the food we ate, but it was a fun experience. 

frog, open heart vegetable, taro, broad beans

I had one last dinner with Duo and Leigh at their favorite local restaurant close to their place.  Once again, delicious food at a very low price.  River eel, baby river shrimp, cucumbers with purple cilantro, and the empty-hearted green vegetable.  We went for a stroll to let our food settle.  We walked by a nice, quaint place in the middle of the city where there is grass and some small trees with flowers, and many Adirondack – type chairs spread about.  There is a stand where they sell tea to people and they can sit, relax, and enjoy the outdoors.  There is also a stone trail weaving through the trees, in which some people walk barefoot because the stones are good for the acupressure points in their feet.

Outdoor Tea Time

After waiving down another taxi, Leigh and I were on our way to the tea house, Duo went to the airport for his flight to Shanghai.  It was another relaxing evening at the tea house with Leigh and myself intermixed with the regulars floating in and out of the main table downstairs.  I thoroughly enjoyed every sip of tea, and realized that I really will miss this place – the more time I spend here.  After about an hour and a half we caught a taxi back to Leigh’s place so that I could meet Apple, one of our coordinators, to pick up Laurel from the airport.  Leaving the tea house was a bit tricky – we had to time it just right, otherwise they would keep refilling our teacups, and neither of us wanted to waste that precious, delicious tea.  Eventually we both downed our tiny little cups at the same time, stood up, and said goodbye.