I recently stumbled upon this video of my grandparents’ 80th birthday celebration from May 2009. At the time, I was based in Beijing on my Fulbright, and my parents were visiting China from the U.S. to visit my mother’s side of the family in Nanjing. We had an elaborate dinner at a nice hotel by 玄武湖，Xuanwu Lake, several blocks from my grandparent’s home on 中央路, Zhongyang Lu, one of the main thoroughfares of the (now rapidly expanding and increasingly unfamiliar) city. It was the second time in my lifetime my entire mom’s side of the family had congregated under one roof.

The atmosphere was festive: it was loud; there was storytelling and laughter; there was an overabundance of food, drink, and cake (most of which had to be taken home, as pictured below). The dinner also featured the typical birthday customs for celebrating longevity and honoring elders: long life noodles, peaches, and a gold thread hand-embroidered character for “longevity,” 寿 (shòu). It was the classic Chinese dinner party.

While the birthday celebration brought everyone physically together, and despite having visited Nanjing numerous times over the years, I had never felt close to my China-based family. Tried as I might, I could not relate to them. I cannot remember a single time that I’ve hugged any of my Nanjing relatives. Sometimes, I would get a handshake. Two of my male cousins were obsessed with video games that consumed their after-work lives (how they have girlfriends is beyond me), thus hindering any chance of human-to-human interaction. My younger (also male) cousin, who tested into a university in Hainan, dropped out because he couldn’t bear to be so far away from home. Now he’s studying logistics at a vocational college in Nanjing and going through the typical middle-class urban teenager angst-against-the-world phase, albeit a several years later than the average Western boy. I rarely saw most of my aunts and uncles, who had moved to the suburbs to be closer to work. Bottom line: I didn’t know them well enough, and they didn’t know me either. I was an elusive presence, related by blood but completely different in demeanor and outlook. While I don’t know them well, Nanjing has and will always be associated with them, as if their presence were a constant.

It came as a surprise to me when my grandfather passed away on February 23 of this year. How could he be gone? Every time I visited, we went through the same routine. He was always sticking his head out the window or pacing around the neighborhood as he awaited my arrival from the train station or airport (or my return if I had stepped out to wander the streets). Upon reuniting with my grandfather, we would reenter the gate of their apartment complex and bump into neighbors lounging in an old La-Z-Boy or preparing vegetables for dinner. Every time, my grandfather would smile at them, point to me, and say, with his chin proudly cocked towards the air, “This is my granddaughter. She is from the U.S.” Upon climbing the three flights of stairs to their home, his usual routine would be to point at photographs of me as a young child that were placed under the glass tabletop, and tell me that was me, as a young child. Then he would ask me if I remember sitting on the back of his bicycle as he navigated the complex and intertwining neighborhoods when I first visited in 1990. Unfortunately, the conversation never veered too far from that.

Now, upon rediscovering and watching the video, I was reminded of each of my relatives’ unique personalities—however vibrant or dull—and I wished that I had been able to experience more, so that I had a deeper impression than my extremely superficial knowledge of their lives. With three out of four of my grandparents gone, I feel immense regret to have failed to hear and understand their stories, opinions, and points of view. I hope this is the last time I let memories and stories slip away before I have a chance to hear them, remember them.

Rest in Peace, 公公.

My last day in China, Saturday, September 4, was fraught with goodbyes-that-aren’t-really-goodbyes (we all hate finality), frustrations and sadness. In the morning, my friends came over and cleared out my electronics, blankets, sheets, cookware, silverware, dishes, spices, bicycles—anything that wasn’t going in my suitcase. In the afternoon, I cleaned out my Chinese bank account, exchanged everything to USD, and closed the account. Then came the challenges.

Challenge #1: Getting my rent deposit back from the landlady

Ah, the landlady, someone who is defined by her difficulty to understand and communicate with her tenants. Originally I was going to get my deposit back on Friday, but then she took it back. “What if I give you the money back, and by the time you leave Sunday, the apartment will be broken in half?” I reassured her that if I had lived in the apartment for 9 months without burning the place down, she could trust that I wouldn’t do it in the next 48 hours. Despite my efforts, she refused, citing that upon returning the deposit, I must return the keys and find somewhere else to live until I fly out. “This is how it is done in China. This is how it is always done in China.” I told her I could gladly wait until Sunday if she would like to come over to the apartment at 4am in the morning. We finally agreed on Saturday.

Despite promising to return my deposit around 3pm on Saturday, she procrastinated until 5:30pm, when she finally went to the bank to withdraw my cash. I told her that I needed to go to the bank to exchange the money into USD, and now it would be too late (banks close at 6:00pm). I asked her to do it for me: 1500 in RMB, 2880 in USD. She retorted, “What is this 2880? Why this number? You can’t make things difficult for me! I’m just going to exchange 2500RMB, if you have a problem with it, deal with it.” I told her 2500 is fine.

Five minutes later, she called, asking, “Do you have any more RMB? The bank just gave me 2500 in USD instead of changing 2500RMB into USD.” She refused to exchange it back into RMB because of the unfavorable exchange rate. I replied, “I’m sorry, I have no RMB. I already exchanged everything into USD.”

Karma?

Challenge #2: Getting the deposit back on my water tank (for the water cooler)

I called the water company at 3:00pm asking to come over and return the deposit on my water tank. He said to call at 6:00pm, when they’d be less busy. So I called then, and the employee there refused to come over to return the deposit, saying, “The boss isn’t here, I have no money. We can come on Monday.” I told him: a) I leave the country tomorrow so there are no other opportunities to come and b) it’s impossible for a business that works with cash transactions to not have money, and c) to scrounge up 50RMB for reimbursement when the boss returns. After 10 minutes of bickering on the phone he hesitantly agreed to return my money between 6:30 and 8:00pm. I told him that I do not have time to sit around and wait, and he basically told me to suck it up.

By around 8:00pm, I had already left the apartment and gave the water bottle and deposit receipt to the front desk. I then called the water company, who did not pick up (must be caller ID). I proceeded to call the water delivery man, who was saddened by my departure and was there within 10 minutes to return my deposit to the front desk. He called again, asking if we would ever see each other again, and wished me endless success and happiness in life. After this exchange went on indefinitely, mission: accomplished.

Challenge #3: Proving “Customer is the emperor”

For dinner, a friend and I went to a restaurant for a free meal due to points on a benefits card. Since we had just had a free meal last week with the same set menu, we asked the waiter if we could choose other things on the regular menu, such as sandwiches or salads or other entrées. He said yes, and I chose sea bass and a chocolate dessert (instead of red snapper and carrot cake).

By the end of the meal, he came over and brought over a check for 128.00RMB. He came over and explained, “You had only asked if you could exchange for a sandwich or salad, not another entrée. So this is why I am charging you.”
We asked, “Why didn’t you tell us you would charge us when we ordered the dish?”
“I am sorry about that. If it would be any better, you can pay for half of the price and I will use money out of my own pocket to pay for the other half.”
“Please bring the manager over.”
“Please, let us handle this between us. You can pay half and I will pay the other half, is that okay?” (Does this ever happen in the U.S.?)
“No, please bring the manager over.”
After, again, much bickering, the manager came, apologized for the mistake, and excused us from paying.

I am lucky that in the end everything worked out, but I wonder if it was worth the price of wasting so much time dealing with it. There is no doubt in my mind that I needed a break from living in China, but there is also no doubt that living there has taught me so much.

A simple Google Scholar search shows more results that undermine the notion that TFA brings “positive” change to underperforming schools across the country than supporting it.

One study says:

Findings for 5 school districts, roughly 300 new teachers, show that students of under-certified teachers (including teachers from the “Teach for America” program) make about 20% less academic growth than do students of regularly certified teachers.

While I believe the underlying philosophy of TFA is still honorable, the pageantry and self-righteousness involved on the applicant side has turned me off from the whole thing. Do students avoid independently searching for jobs because it lacks the prestige associated with TFA? Is there a sustainable solution to bring positive impact to low-performing schools?

While I am ready and excited to start the next chapter of my life, a part of me is sad to leave China. Luckily, once I get home I’ll have more time for myself (and graduate school applications!!), for photography, for fast and uncensored internet, for all the other things I enjoy in life.

One thing I’ll miss about China: women in pajamas and hair curlers on a
public street playing with dogs (and naturally with 10+ people
crowded around taking pictures and gossiping)