Zai Jian!

I know that I am way behind on posts and that I still need to cover everything since Hong Kong, but I thought I'd take a minute to describe my surprise at leaving Wuhan tomorrow. Leaving China is a bit like coming to China: I don't have a crazed anticipation for my departure the way I did when going to and from London to study abroad. Instead, I feel as though I have packed up my stuff and will return shortly. I'm not sure if it's because my China adventure has been bookended by Singapore or if I am truly that nonchalant about the whole experience.

This summer was genuinely life changing. Without my triumphs and tribulations in Wuhan, I never would have fully understood my (somewhat distant) ancestral ties to China, and I could have blindly signed onto a position with a company in a Chinese city that I simply am not ready to take on. My eyes have been opened to a new side of the regal, studious and petite people of mainland China, a side that is over looked in movies and is essentially illegal in Singapore. This side of the population is rude, uneducated, ignorant, unsanitary and a number of other adjectives which don't highlight all of the positive attributes of the population. On the other hand, the AIESECers and my students and coworkers at New Oriental are some of the most genuine, interesting, and open-hearted people that I have ever met. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart that I have been given this chance to get a taste of my homeland, but the reality of it all is that I ache for a taste of All-American apple pie.