La Vita è Bella
Sometimes life amazes me... The last few days have left me dazed, confused, happy, and sad. Ecstatic and miserable.. It started off with a field trip to Yangshuo. Xue Lin, Cherry, and myself were large and in charge and our students were our minions. I had been planning to tell Xue Lin that I love her during this time since I found out that we were going. Nothing went as planned, of course. We did many things and crazy things happened:
1) I despise Western silverware now and I prefered the Chinese food to Western style food (kind of).
2) Fieldtrips are a teacher's nightmare because students wreak havoc and do the opposite of what they should (I was much worse at that age, though, to be fair). We had the girls and boys in the same room and gambling, lighting fireworks (YES, INDOORS), et cetera... I came to the rescue - in my underwear (Though with some protest) - by request of the young and beautiful Xue Lin. I told them they had ten minutes to get to bed or I'd kick their arses. Five minutes later they were fast asleep.
3) It's really bloody hot in Yangshuo. I actually wanted to buy water from the crazy street people that verbally bombard tourists.
4) Being able to speak Chinese is sooo absobloodylutely useful when you are being targeted by said crazy street people. And it makes one so very cool. Other foreigners that happen by could not compete with my magnitude of 1337n3$$.
5) I met Dutch people on top of a mountain and spoke with them for over twenty minutes while my class watched, dumbfounded. Small world..
6) If you're tan you can still get sunburned.
Anyways, the real thing I wanted to mention was what happened between Xue Lin and I. Saturday night I told her that I loved her, while she drank cold coffee and I banana juice (It's damn good). She said that she had things to say, but needed time to think about how to tell me, so I said "Man dian" (Take your time).
Today, after an insanely long bicycle ride and a short rest, I asked her to take a walk with me by the Li Jiang (Probably the most beautiful river in the world - fuck, mates, come see it for yourselves...). We walked in and out of shoppes and looked at the interesting things to buy; mostly crafts and traditional clothes. The sun was shining briliant and the river swept past. What happened next was just as awful as it was romantic and wonderful. We walked across a stone "bridge". Some of the stones were submerged, so I offered to carry her over them. We then sat down by a waterfall, overlooking the river. The view may have been the most incredible view in the world and is impossible to describe, the blue sky, mountains, bright green rice paddies.. I told her this and then looked into her eyes and said that she was more beautiful.
She told me that she could not accept my love because I should find a healthy girl to marry. I told her that if she is kind, gentle, beautiful, clever, et cetera, and if I love her that that's all that matters. She wanted to be a single girl, she said, because she has heart disease and suspects that her life may not be too long. I told her that life is a precious thing offered only once and that one should live every day to the fullest - Carpe diem. My feelings for her remain, I explained, and I will continue to try and win her heart. I feel closer to that goal now. I feel like I love her even more now because everyday she's beautiful and puts on an amazing smile to make everyone happy, whilst she silently suffers and that she prefers it that way so as no0ne worries about her. I want to make her happy at all costs. She deserves it.
After we talked for several hours and the breeze next to the waterfall cooled us we stood up, and I told her not to worry because I would love her tomorrow as well and she could take it slow, we slowly walked back and, after herding the students into the coach, headed back to Guilin. The countryside is so spectacularly beautiful it takes my breath away. It reminds me of why I came here in the first place. Xue Lin lay asleep in the seat behind me, more beautiful than anything outside.
I have to decide where I'm going now. I think I will tell her that I'm going to Yangshuo and that if she feels the same about me as I do about her that she should come with me or ask me to stay. She is indecisive as well. One of us must make a decision.
1) I despise Western silverware now and I prefered the Chinese food to Western style food (kind of).
2) Fieldtrips are a teacher's nightmare because students wreak havoc and do the opposite of what they should (I was much worse at that age, though, to be fair). We had the girls and boys in the same room and gambling, lighting fireworks (YES, INDOORS), et cetera... I came to the rescue - in my underwear (Though with some protest) - by request of the young and beautiful Xue Lin. I told them they had ten minutes to get to bed or I'd kick their arses. Five minutes later they were fast asleep.
3) It's really bloody hot in Yangshuo. I actually wanted to buy water from the crazy street people that verbally bombard tourists.
4) Being able to speak Chinese is sooo absobloodylutely useful when you are being targeted by said crazy street people. And it makes one so very cool. Other foreigners that happen by could not compete with my magnitude of 1337n3$$.
5) I met Dutch people on top of a mountain and spoke with them for over twenty minutes while my class watched, dumbfounded. Small world..
6) If you're tan you can still get sunburned.
Anyways, the real thing I wanted to mention was what happened between Xue Lin and I. Saturday night I told her that I loved her, while she drank cold coffee and I banana juice (It's damn good). She said that she had things to say, but needed time to think about how to tell me, so I said "Man dian" (Take your time).
Today, after an insanely long bicycle ride and a short rest, I asked her to take a walk with me by the Li Jiang (Probably the most beautiful river in the world - fuck, mates, come see it for yourselves...). We walked in and out of shoppes and looked at the interesting things to buy; mostly crafts and traditional clothes. The sun was shining briliant and the river swept past. What happened next was just as awful as it was romantic and wonderful. We walked across a stone "bridge". Some of the stones were submerged, so I offered to carry her over them. We then sat down by a waterfall, overlooking the river. The view may have been the most incredible view in the world and is impossible to describe, the blue sky, mountains, bright green rice paddies.. I told her this and then looked into her eyes and said that she was more beautiful.
She told me that she could not accept my love because I should find a healthy girl to marry. I told her that if she is kind, gentle, beautiful, clever, et cetera, and if I love her that that's all that matters. She wanted to be a single girl, she said, because she has heart disease and suspects that her life may not be too long. I told her that life is a precious thing offered only once and that one should live every day to the fullest - Carpe diem. My feelings for her remain, I explained, and I will continue to try and win her heart. I feel closer to that goal now. I feel like I love her even more now because everyday she's beautiful and puts on an amazing smile to make everyone happy, whilst she silently suffers and that she prefers it that way so as no0ne worries about her. I want to make her happy at all costs. She deserves it.
After we talked for several hours and the breeze next to the waterfall cooled us we stood up, and I told her not to worry because I would love her tomorrow as well and she could take it slow, we slowly walked back and, after herding the students into the coach, headed back to Guilin. The countryside is so spectacularly beautiful it takes my breath away. It reminds me of why I came here in the first place. Xue Lin lay asleep in the seat behind me, more beautiful than anything outside.
I have to decide where I'm going now. I think I will tell her that I'm going to Yangshuo and that if she feels the same about me as I do about her that she should come with me or ask me to stay. She is indecisive as well. One of us must make a decision.