August 10th, 2015:

So it's almost been a week since I've returned home from China.  Although it was a 22-day trip, I am still adjusting to the time change, cultural differences, and even the subtle loneliness that sets in when the ever-moving traveling, teaching, and interactive schedule comes to an abrupt end.  Albeit it's a peaceful time to reflect, but when I am never ready to leave the beautiful and ever-embracing peoples of a faraway land, I can easily tell myself that I can do without all the quietude.  I miss the camaraderie, the classrooms that were saturated with both kindness and humidity, and the ever-present smiles shining by my beautiful Chinese students and newfound friends.

Just the other day, I was driving to the gym and I had to take a deep breath, sitting in the parking space, looking at the windows that displayed its members working hard on the treadmills.  My initial response, quietly to myself, was something along the lines of "well, I guess I'm back.  I'll be another rat running on the same old wheel until the next time..."  I despised the fact that I virtually have to drive almost everywhere again, unlike in China.  I loved the fact that we could walk and walk, and run!, and not be in need of a car on a daily basis.  I have so much appreciation for using our bodies to get us from points A to B.  It's a great way to stay in shape, stay alert, feel less spoiled, and, let's face it!, you can see so much more around you when you walk; take a deep breath, and visually take it all in!  I can see beauty exposed to the open skies, marketplaces, surroundings than one could ever observe in a vehicle.

It's been a strange feeling being home.  My body is here, but my mind is back in rooms 117, 217, and 223 at the Guangzhou's University campus's classrooms.  My students await for me to walk through the door and we recite a loud and boisterous "Good morning!" and every time I ask how they are doing, they are searching for endless ways to tell me WITHOUT saying "I'm fine", the canned response their early English years taught them to say.  I truly felt a blissful happiness, a newfound confidence I never experienced before, and a deep sense of purpose while in the presence of these beautiful and hard-working individuals.  Perhaps they will never know that as much energy as they exhibited in excitement for my being there, I absorbed it all and reflected with a greater energy than I have ever known, like I was on the top of the world, ready to give them everything I had.  Perhaps they will never know how much they truly touched my heart and how much it hurt to walk out of that classroom one last time.

It was the first class, my adult class, that openly expressed on our last day at camp that it was too difficult to say goodbye, so they suggested we didn't. That saved me from a river of tears.  For both of us.  I told them that in just over three weeks, they have made China feel like home to me.  So two of my very loving students, Nicky and Chinin, asked me when I was coming home again.  It was decided.  We wouldn't say goodbye; we would simply respond with "see you again when you come back home!"  That alone almost brought me to tears, but the deep feelings of sadness subsided when they all came up to me, linking arms, putting their arms around me, and we ended up taking multiple selfies, even with Ying's selfie stick!, and just sharing endless moments of laughter.

That was followed by my entire class teaching me how to write my name in Chinese, signing my camp shirt in multi-colored Sharpies, having me write on their camp shirts and writing them little notes, like I was signing their yearbooks.  One of my students is a reporter in Guangzhou; her name is Li Li.  Her smile beamed from ear to ear and her eyes lit up every time she saw me in the hallways.  She would always wave excitedly and greet me with a "Hello Holly!" or "Good morning!"  Her English skills were very basic and she relied greatly on her peers to help translate and help her push out her responses in English.  Unbeknownst to me, she wrote about 3-4 pages about me, how I made camp so exciting for her, and how she learned so much from me.  It is all in Chinese; however, thanks to the wonderful gesture of my student-teacher, Lucy, she promised to translate the reflection and send it to me.  I look forward to reading Li Li's reflections with such humility and compassion!  There was a saying that I told this class, over and over again, especially when they felt they were performing only sub-par: "you are much better than you think you are!"  Perhaps this was Li Li's way of saying the same to me.

July 25th, 2015:

So I wasn't feeling well last night or the day before, really.  Fasting seems to be the best antidote, however, for how active we are and how much we sweat, I need to find some sort of fresh and healthy supplement.  At first I thought it was due to severe dehydration and perhaps that was part of the cocktail, but I think that the oil-laden foods and assortment of meats is just sending my bowels into overdrive.  That was until last night.

Do you know the feeling of the innate concern of the unfamiliar rumbling and rolling in your stomach while you're trying to sit and converse politely with friends?  That is the automatic cue to stop eating and just ride it out, or, you can excuse yourself and race against time back to the hotel and into the bathroom to save face.  Yes; I thought I would go for a walk in town by myself, check out the local produce, see the night life, but nature had another plan for me.  I just arrived to my room in time to expel all of the horrors and sounds from my gut.  It reminded me of my parasitic infections in Nepal last summer, so I immediately decided that I would no longer brave this discontent by myself, but rely on the cleansing powers of Cipro.  Except this time, I felt like I could've thrown up as well.

I laid in my bed, finding no comfortable position.  My stomach hurt, even to the touch, and to move in my bed was out of the question.  Just as I closed my eyes, I heard knocking on my wall.  It was my jokester next door neighbor, Curtis.  He knocked once, twice, maybe even a third time.  As I may have entertained his knocking with a follow-up knock, that was not happening.  Knowing that one move would have sent me bee- lining to the bathroom, I stayed in the fetal position, waiting to die, or fall asleep, whichever came first.

July 23rd, 2015:

I woke up this morning feeling very ill.  In fact, I felt so ill before bedtime that I promised myself I would get up early and work on finishing touches to my lesson plans.  I crashed before 10:30, which is very early for me.  I can quite figure out the source of ailing pains.  It started as a very sharp migraine, to bloodshot eyes, to feeling so lethargic I could barely force myself out of bed, even for the slightest of duties.  Upon awakening, I had to run to the bathroom and had such sharp, intense pains.  Within 2 minutes, I was back doing the same thing.  I had to sit on the bed just to get ready.  Pulling up my shorts was exhausting and fixing my hair was out of the question.

I finished up my lesson plans, skipped breakfast, drank plenty of water and hit the bathroom one more time before I walked to the school.  I'm sure my energy levels were apparent with my students and to my unfortunate circumstance, my first class was so humid that I continuously sweated and felt sharp pains in my gut.  I moved onto my next class and felt so spent and ill that the 90 minute class couldn't end soon enough.  Standing up and teaching was more physically taxing than I could remember.  My saving grace, always, is a phenomenal class that is made up of such kind, genuine, and conscientious students who can make any rough day feel purposeful.  I am always touched by their grace and heartfelt words.

I skipped lunch with our group.  Just the thought of adding insult to injury by means of a Chinese smorgasbord and unnecessarily stuffing my face, sampling everything that continuously rotates on the lazy Suzan just gave me feelings of needing to run to the bathroom all over again.  So explaining to everyone why I couldn't join them for lunch, I headed back, painfully, to the hotel.  I stopped at the bakery for some bread and yogurt, wondering if I should replace the necessary bacteria in my intestinal tract because my morning routine told me it was wiped clean.

When I got back to my hotel room, I had enough energy to finish a roll and eat my yogurt and then I crashed for about an hour.  If I hadn't set my alarm, I would've slept the entire day; I do know that.  I dragged myself to this little quaint, European-style coffee shop to order some hot honey and ginger tea.  It reminded me of Kabita's homemade and medicinal ginger tea she would always prepare for me when I had the parasitic infections or just felt melancholy in Nepal.  It brought on a somber disposition as I miss my Nepali sister and brother so very dearly.  I can hear Kabita's voice as she tells me so many stories and shares so many expressions and I can always hear Sunil's contagious laughter.  I do look forward to seeing them again, very soon.

After I worked on some final ideas for my adult class in the afternoon, I trudged back in the typhoon rains back to the school.  My shorts were soaked in the front, but after 90 minutes, the rain on the front of my shorts dried and the entire backside was soaking wet.  I was sweating profusely.  I kept wiping drops of sweat off my face, my eyebrows, and neck.  When class ended, I walked back to the hotel with Sean, feeling worse with time.  I know it sounds like a completely crazy idea, but it has been foolproof previous times.  I decided, as I was walking and talking with Sean, that I should probably go for a run.  The teaching schedule, with no day off, and the intense humidity can be severely exhausting, but a run can always make me feel better when I am under the weather, even if it's just for that run.  So I went out for about 30 minutes, sweated profusely and had some tough stretches, but felt much better overall.  The moment the run was over, I went right back to my lethargy and gut cramps.

It's hard to say what is causing these bad pains and lethargy.  It could be the diet change, all Chinese food, which is prepared in so many different kinds of heavy oils, such hot and spicy foods that set your throat, lips, and tongue on fire and NEVER go away, well it feels that way anyway.  Chinese dishes are really an art and they just wow me with so many different varieties of ways they can prepare anything, from all different cuts of meat, to every type of vegetable or root, including lotus root and bamboo shoots.  I'm just intrigued!

July 22nd, 2015:

I've never felt so edified and validated before a group of students as I have here in China.  It wasn't anything I could have ever anticipated; frankly, I had no idea how my teaching style and interactions would fit in here in this beautiful country.  I've never seen a collective group of students soak up knowledge and want to know so much more, craving to maximize their potential and fluency in English.  There is no sarcasm, no laziness, no lethargy in learning.  They are just so fried by the end of the day after sitting through six or seven hours of different and varied English classes.  That would be like any one of us sitting in classes of a completely new and challenging language for that amount of time.  Different teachers, different activities.  The resiliency is beyond admirable and they are such a proverbial sponge, never to be fully satiated.

There is a class I see for 90 minutes every other day.  They are a very quiet, but respectful group of students.  Senior 2s are the equivalency of juniors.  The abilities range all over the place.  I shared an Aesop's Fable with them today, "The Ant and the Grasshopper".  They enjoyed the story very much and much to their pleasant surprise, I brought random illustrations printed in color and they started writing their own fable, a short story with a moral lesson at the end.  I printed illustrations from Little Red Riding Hood, James and the Giant Peach, Beatrix Potter's Peter Cottontail, The Polar Express, and other illustrated photos and it's just so great to hear a newly created version from the point of view of these Chinese students.  It gives life to the monotonous stories that many of us grew up reading, learning, telling.  To see the level of excitement in their expressions as they crafted their own creations was so fulfilling for me.

The bell rang and after I packed up, I was walking out the door and the student teacher was waiting for me outside the classroom.  She told me that the students told her that they love having me as their teacher, that I am a lot of fun and they think I am so funny. Again, one never knows the kind of impact they have on an individual, or a class for that matter.  I never know and although many of us come from societies that depend on instant gratification, this genuine acknowledgement was so much sweeter.  It's a pleasant surprise and one that will have me riding high as I continue to plan my lessons, interact with every individual, trying my best to bestow upon them the understanding that they are important and their ideas are unique, individual, and greatly appreciated!

In my adult class this morning, it was so hot!!!  It was so humid and the air was dead.  I couldn't believe how much I was sweating.  One of my sweet students, Chinin, left the room before we began and returned after a minute or so.  She bought me a refreshing, cold lemon-fruity drink and sat down.  They are so hospitable.  At the break of class, another one of my students tossed a piece of Dove's white chocolate to me.  It tasted so sweet and melted in my mouth, invoking a temporary sensory bliss.  She just smiled and walked out to the hallway to take a break.  I could spend my career here.  There's such a grand appreciation for teachers, and even a grander level of respect.  It's a respectful career choice and you would never hear the bitter saying, "it must be nice to have your summers off!" or "how hard could your job really be?"  There is something so powerful about the opportunity to teach young minds, craving minds, adults, children, anyone.  To impart knowledge and the power that follows it gives me such great purpose and when I feel rich with a hospitable, loving, and conscientious class, there is nothing that could age or cripple my mind, my heart, my being.

To work alongside of teachers, faculty, and staff that share those same goals, no matter where in the world you may be, there is an unstoppable force of bliss that encompasses me.  When you put those students and those teachers in the same environ, same classroom, same building, not one negative thought enters my mind. Not one negative person can slow me down.  Not one.

You know, many constantly share with me that they would never be able to do what I do.  However, until they've tried and experienced it, "never" should ever enter that statement.  It does make me wonder, however, if it is how the person embraces a moment.  I also wonder if they felt these "life highs" as I have, would they continue seeking it?  Sometimes, the "life highs" will not come from where we have been day in, day out.  Sometimes they do and we must embrace them and share them.  Sometimes they occur from far away, in my case halfway across the world, and now I can't imagine what life would have been for me if I had never ventured into the great unknown.  I always come back to Robert Frost, a quote I first practiced calligraphy in my junior high art class: "Two roads diverged in a wood and I- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference!"

July 21st, 2015:

Each new teaching day gets better and better!  I've never had an experience like this!  The Chinese learning and interacting ethic is so rewarding and touching.  They are second to none compared to any students I've ever taught collectively.

My adult class asked me to come to the classroom after dinner to teach them songs and help them with their class song.  At the end of the camp, the students put on a talent show and each class has a song to perform.  As monotonous as its lyrics seemed and constantly playing over the radio back home, "You Raise me Up" was full of life and passion.  They poured everything into that song, embracing the meaning.  I think as much as they were singing towards hopes and dreams, I was singing to them because that's exactly what they do for me.  I got goose bumps.  I also promised I would bring a song to them and sing it in English.  I chose Adele's "Make You Feel my Love".  They asked me why it was my favorite.  I told them how it reflected a very difficult time in my life and how a very dear and close friend of mine pulled me from the depths of the abyss and they sang it with more passion than the first, as if they felt my story in each word.  We could have sang all night together, but like all cherished moments, they are short-lived in person, ever-lasting in the heart.

Getting our Schedules...

Prior to our departure, we needed to prepare lesson plans for 'potential classes'; it is so important to understand the phrase "go with the flow.  Nothing is set in stone".  Of course we can all translate and give multiple examples of what that looks like, but like every country I've traveled and taught in, there isn't any better advice to take to heart.  The truth of the matter is is that it was nice to flesh through some lessons even if I would never use them because it just regenerated new and fresh ideas to try when I entered the classroom.  We had a table of contents to work with and that was just enough for me.  Prior to departure, we had to submit our lesson plans and it was very useful to print out various items and take some general supplies.  I already felt greatly prepared than when I was in Nepal and had absolutely nothing, just my own pens and notebook.

When we arrived in Guangzhou, after our tour of Beijing, it was time to focus and get back into teaching mode.  We met some of the administrators and assistants, received our schedules and lesson books and would begin the next morning after the opening ceremonies. It was already 8:30 pm.  I discovered that I had three levels to teach- adults, Senior 3s, and Senior 2s. The adult class consisted of individuals already working steady jobs, college students, those that had just finished their high school exams, etc.  They were seeking a practical way of using English, improving their communication.  Some even received incentive from their employers that if they become fluent in English, they will receive a raise.  Senior 3s were heading into their senior year of high school, just graduated high school, or one was quite advanced in her English and was just going into 10th grade. Lastly, the Senior 2s were made up of students who finished 10th grade and would be juniors in the Fall.

Although jitters can be so normal the morning of first classes, I was ready to go, excited to meet my new students!

Care for a scorpion or lizard kabob?

We just got in from a long and very stimulating day in Beijing.  We toured Tiananmen Square and I got a great photo of a Communist guard and a coolie laborer.  What a dichotomy!  Then we moved onto the Forbidden City, which is the palace that endured 24 emperors.  We then ventured onto the Summer Palace.  These squares and locales are just immense, spacious, and open!  From time to time, the sun would bear its presence, but then disappear behind the thick smog again.  The air felt fine, breathing-wise, and it felt cool, like Beijing's smog is sheltering them from the intensity of the scorching heat.  We had some great air flow throughout the day.  I still sweated through two shirts, but that was probably due to the backpack I lugged around all day.

From there, we explored for lunch, going to the street markets where the plethora or smells were met by some really bad ones, but we ventured on.  I took some pretty interesting photos of the things they stuck on a kabob stick and it wriggled and writhed until someone placed their order and then they were fired and fried.  Some tried the fried scorpion and octopus, but I really had no desire.  I ended up purchasing fried banana and fried ice cream for lunch.  Then we walked around and I ventured into a beautiful, aromatic jasmine tea shop.  If I worked in a market, that would be my choice!

The malls were huge and affluent and I had no desire to walk through more GAPS, Apple stores, etc.  then I found a book store and shortly after, we met up to go to the downtown Beijing communities that were isolated in their windy, traditional housing units.  These were the last to remain after the demolition plans and forced removals for the Beijing Olympics.  For 1500 sq. feet, I believe the guide said the home and its plot cost no less than $15 million.  We took a really smooth ride in the bicycle-operated rickshaws and I observed an incredible artist who paints inside all different-sized bottles, trinkets, glassware, etc. and so incredible.  I purchased a few of these masterpieces and also bought a Hulu si, which translates to "gourd flute", a similar feel to the recorder and Irish tin whistle, even the clarinet to a degree.  The sound is quite soothing and I want to be able to replicate it.

From there, we met John and Chen Yan at a restaurant called Peking Duck and had yet another smorgasbord.  Food selections such as lotus root, eggplant, cauliflower with lamb and cilantro, different pork cuts to pack in a wrap, vegetables, and then the Peking duck arrived.  Every bird that is ordered, they cook it whole and then will use a small cleaver to make the different cuts, serving them on various plates, starting with the top layers of fried, fatty skin, which you use to make another little wrap with slices of radish sticks, melon sticks, cucumber and scallion sticks, a duck sauce unlike what you would find in the U.S., and large granules of a pinkish-orange sugar, which is then topped with the duck skin and meat. I don't recall that I've ever had duck in my lifetime, but this was the way to go.  

We finished off the dinner with fresh fried dough with fried milk inside, which really just tasted like a custard, dipped in some sugary-type pudding sauce and then a starch dessert that was another fried dough, but wrapped in swivels that you would begin peeling from the center to outer layers.  Tasted just like the flaky, outer layer of a croissant.  

We came back to the hotel and could hear the sounds of what would be, to me, a bad karaoke concert, but I have a feeling it's just a bad singer.  I'll take pictures of the gorgeous little waterside environ with a quaint bridge and gorgeous trees by which we eat our breakfast.  Koi fish are plentiful and are fed frequently.  So peaceful.  My view from the hotel is of Beijing and the Bird's Nest.  I'm waiting for them to light up!

We are scheduled to go to the Beijing Zoo on Friday to see the panda bears and John told me that they even have a Dalmatian on display at the zoo- sort of comical, I think.  We wondered if the surrounding environ would consist of a kitchen, fenced in backyard...perhaps a firehouse?? Either way, it would be kind of interesting to see a Dalmatian on display.