Even though we’ve been here nearly 9 months already, this week China has felt very different. It wasn’t the climate, it wasn’t classes…it was a subtle sense of temporality. Knowing that we’re going to be leaving in July really gives everything an almost nostalgic air, which caused me to ponder on the bus (at the risk of almost missing my stop) what
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Tea is fascinating. You could study tea in China for 100 years and barely scratch the surface. Especially interesting to me is how China, Japan, and Korea each have a "tea ceremony", but the feelings, the rituals, and the motivations are very, very different amongst them. If I had unlimited time and money, I would totally do a graduate thesis on tea. I'd love to try South African tea...I didn't even know you could grow it there!
Students are great, yes, but the unforeseen downside of being so popular with them is that it's heartbreaking when I tell them I won't be here next year. I've seen some of them nearly break down in tears over it, and that's pretty hard to swallow.
What could a rigid bed try to tell me? That capitalist mattresses are soft like their policies? And the only way I can get through the bureaucracy nightmares are to reassure myself that this country is not my permanent home. I don't know what I'd do if it actually WAS.
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