Goodbye China / Zàijiàn zhōngguó / 再见中国

This post is a little overdue but it is also very important as it is likely to be my last post on this blog. As you may have gathered from the title my time in China has come to an end. I had every intention of writing this post from the airport as I waited for my flight out of China but there were a few other posts I hadn’t written yet and so many photos I still wanted to share from the holiday to Guilin and Yangshuo that it just didn’t happen. This post does come on a rather auspicious day however as it was on this very day, two years ago, back in 2009 that I left Cape Town International Airport with a one-way ticket to China.

I think you’ll agree that something’s just not quite right about this photo…

It is hard to sum up the last two years in a single post but with any luck you will have been following my adventure via this blog so all that is left is for me to do is to give you my impression of China. Writing this several weeks after leaving China I am able to look back on my time there with some perspective. There are several people I’ve met that have asked me, “how was China?” and my response has been this,

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My last day at Yinhe School

The time has come, the day has arrived, I’ve taught my last class and now it’s time to say goodbye. I’ve finished my second teaching contract here in China and I thought it would be nice to look back over the last 9 months and my experience teaching in a primary school. You may have seen some of my exploits in these previous posts classroom antics, bittersweet ride to work, staff tour to see the flowers and the day we got beer at lunch. Today however I’ve gathered some never before seen photos like this one.

Student Feedback - don't take it personally

I also took some pictures of the school grounds to give you a better idea of where all this took place and put them together in a video slideshow. Even better, I’ve used the song that gets played everyday at the end of school over a loud-speaker system in every room so you can have the full experience.

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Sports Day and a surprise at lunch

We were told only a week before that the school was having its sports day (or days) last week Thursday and Friday. Not only that but we were on the teachers team number 5 and were to report to the canteen after classes that day to practice jump rope. Needless to say I was hopeless with my timing as was always the one ruining the rhythm with the group jump rope so it was decided I would be running. How far was still unknown.

We all know stretching is important

It wasn’t until our 2nd and last practice the day before that we found out the running option was in fact a 6 x 150m relay. Each runner having to run half way around the slightly smaller than regulation track. It isn’t too far but the nerves then started to kick in. I can handle losing in a 100m dash, but dropping the baton and disappointing 5 other team mates wouldn’t go down well. So we did a few practice hand off runs at jogging speed and that was it. See you tomorrow. Friday came and it was 41 degrees in the shade; the hottest day we’ve had this year.

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