After three flights, two delays and a total of thirty-nine hours of traveling I am finally back home in Florida. The last time I made a post was right before I took my language pledge for a month and I’m now finally free to speak as much English as I want, so please excuse me if my grammar and/or syntax is not up to par.
So an update on the past month. I had one-on-one language classes for four hours every weekday with two language teachers who were both so lovely and forgiving of my exhaustion and often poor memory. There were four students in total that chose to do an intensive language course so we all bonded over our misery and exhaustion. All jokes aside, this last month has been the greatest help to my language learning over the last seven months abroad and I am so grateful to SIT and my fellow students for being so positive and motivational. My languages teachers were especially great and arranged activities together like making 饺子 at one of their houses and having a Thanksgiving dinner all together.
Aside from language classes this month has been wonderful for meeting new friends. In order to avoid the temptation of speaking English, I avoided my Western friends and Westerners in general which led me to meeting some amazing local friends. I became good friends with a local punk band in Kunming called 塑料乐队 (Plastic Band) which opened doors to meeting so many people in the underground music scene in the city, a scene I had no idea even existed before. While many people avoid talking about Chinese politics in general there, it was really eye-opening to talk to this band that openly (albeit through metaphors) criticized and questioned it and current events. They invited me to many shows and even dinner at the singer’s house and in the end became some of my good friends in China.
Saying goodbye to everyone was hard, much harder than my previous two summer programs. After a lot of tears and hugs we all went our separate ways with the promise that at some point we will see each other again. I can’t articulate just how amazing the SIT China program was and how much I’ve grown as a person during it, words and pictures simply can’t suffice. If anyone is considering going to China for study abroad I would say SIT is the best option if you truly want to experience as much of China’s culture as possible.
I’ve been home for less than two days but I already miss the controlled chaos of China and am planning my next trip there. In the meantime, I really need to start working on my tan again back here in the sunshine state.