Recap/Wrap-up

This post will serve as some sort of a wrap-up for this blog.

tl;dr: got lazy, didn't write. but China was great; experience in China was great. 10/10 would recommend.

Okay, so clearly I stopped writing in this blog for quite some time.

There were several reasons for that.

First, the language program I was in for the 8 weeks following my short visit to Guilin had a strict no-English policy. I felt uncomfortable writing a lot in English after signing a commitment to use only Chinese.

Also, I was busy. I don't know how else to put this, but there was so much to do! The program was definitely extremely intensive so studying, reading, writing, etc. took up a lot of time. We even got to go out and survey students and write up reports on Chinese college student views and opinions twice. But, since I wasn't taking the course on grades (or even for credit), I did have some free time. So what did I do with said free time instead of blogging? I became an expert at using public transportation. Buses and subway - too convenient! I visited family all over the city, ate out with some subset of my family for dinner or lunch on at least a weekly basis, helped make dinner on occasion, visited my grandmother's nursing home and my aunt's workplace, and otherwise chilled with family I hadn't seen in far too long. Plus this time, I could actually have real conversations! It was great! I also had to spend a lot of time doing things that take so much less time back home. I've been spoiled by my college in the US where breakfast is in a kitchen 20 steps from my dorm room, everything in that kitchen is free, and people are free to come and go any time between 7 and 11:30 am. But in the university I stayed at in China, the closest cafeteria was a good 10 minute walk away, only open for a very limited amount of time, and often quite crowded with long lines. And then there was clothes washing. Protip: Chinese washers (especially dryers) can eat your clothes. Rip them to shreds. So... hand washing became my thing. And hand washing takes a long time. On the plus side, there was definitely a discernible muscle difference by the end of the summer!

So, why was I so slow to post this recap? Why not at the end of the program just put up this little note of "China was amazing, I got to talk to my teachers about God and it was basically the most amazing experience ever"? Well, that's a long story. And I'm still sorting through things, but in many ways last summer was the best worst summer and worst best summer of my life. And it's really hard for me to separate the two, so I avoided thinking or talking about the good stuff because the bad is there too. Silly me.

Okay soooooo the good stuff:
- Teachers: most of our teachers (18 of them) are in their early/mid 20s are in grad school / just finished grad school in linguistics/teaching Chinese. These teachers genuinely cared about us and were close enough in age to us that we could actually be friends. We had daily one-on-one talks with our teachers, and I just have to say... people in China are thirsty and hungry. They want to hear about the Living God. It's amazing how often religion would come up in casual conversation with teachers, in a country where that's not expected to be a thing.
- Church: so despite the fact that China controls its churches very closely, international churches are given relatively a lot of freedom. I got to visit several such international churches, and the Holy Spirit is ACTIVE and PRESENT and MOVING!! God's doing great things.
- Family: Being able to speak to them in the language they speak did wonders for our relationship. :)
- Food: the food is so good!
- Friends: new friends. Though I wasn't very socially active... I think I made 3 good friends I'll probably be friends with for a looong time.

:) that's all for now (ever)

Bye