Transition to summer

As the spring semester ends and summer begins, I move from full-time teaching to full-time studying. The best perk about teaching is that you have a summer free. Although my break is merely two months, the shortest summer break I’ve ever had, I’ll try to make the most of it and by learning as much Chinese as possible in two months. When I was reflecting upon this, I realized that I have been in the pattern of a school year followed by a summer break ever since I started kindergarten at age four, nearly 20 years ago. I don’t know how many more summer breaks I’ll have.

This past week has been packed with events and lots of goodbyes and it all went by at a dizzying pace. Last Tuesday and Wednesday students took my three exams and I took a Chinese exam in between correcting the English exams. I also watched the last Korea versus China student basketball game, which the students took so seriously that I was not allowed to play. On Thursday night we a had party for the high school students where we ate pizza, watched a slideshow of pictures that I put together, and exchanged gifts anonymously by picking numbers out of a hat.

On Friday we had a final school assembly and virtually all of the teachers went out for lunch. About 25 of use ate around a huge table in a private dining at some hotel in town. There was a torrential downpour all day long and by the time we got back to school the soccer field was underwater, the ponds were overflowing and the streets and walkways on campus had all turned into shallow rivers of swiftly moving water. I got pretty wet walking around the campus saying goodbye to everyone.

I got a ride home and quickly changed and grabbed a pair of shorts before heading out again to get a taxi and meet a student named Paul who lives in town. Paul is a really outgoing kid and a gifted athlete; at school we compete in everything from one-on-one basketball games to computer games. He has taken me out to a couple good restaurants in Taicang and we’ve played tennis at a public court in town. We had talked about going to a swimming pool near his house for weeks but never had any time until school was out.

Walking outside to catch a taxi got me wet all over again so going for a swim was only appropriate. We had the swimming pool to ourselves and spent about an hour racing each other back and forth in the pool. In between pool-length sprints we’d sit on the edge to catch our breaths and chat. We’d become pretty close after nine months so we were able to talk about a lot of personal things – joking with each other, talking about girls, deciding who has more body hair (me), who is stronger (him), and discussing our future plans.

His mom was going to take us out for dinner so after we got out of the pool I was disappointed to see that my clothes had not dried much at all in the damp locker room. I felt like I had never gotten dry all day long. Luckily, Paul had brought along a small hair dryer but when we looked around for a place to plug it in we couldn’t find one. There were no outlets in the locker room but an employee told us we could use one at the front desk. So we followed him and I found myself standing in the middle of the lobby with three women staring at my me as I stood there barefoot, with my damp clothes in hand, wearing nothing but my boxers. Paul simply burst out laughing. I sat on a stool and dried my clothes as much as I could with the little hairdryer while trying to ignore the people around me.

Paul is going to study Japanese at an international school in Tokyo for a year before going to college, so I wrote him a letter of recommendation and his mom was extremely grateful. I think she also appreciated a teacher who could keep up with her son’s athletic pursuits, too.

I got a ride to Changzhou on Saturday and spent the weekend unpacking and storing my winter clothes and other things I did not need for the summer, and then repacking a small bag and a big backpack with some clothes and books for the summer. I said goodbye to lots of teachers, including a number who are leaving China soon, and then I took a train to Beijing on Monday night.

I woke up in Beijing today and grabbed a taxi to the student apartments near the university where I will be studying. It was a surreal morning. The taxi ride took me around Tiananmen Square, where a big sign with a countdown to the opening ceremony of the Olympics read 38 days and nine hours. The taxi driver was quite talkative and asked me teach him some English phrases like “train station” and “you’re welcome.” I met the brother of the Chinese woman I am renting from and met one of my two roommates, an American guy my age who has been here for a couple weeks.

It was a nice welcome to the city and I’m already moved in so I’ve now got time to head out and explore the area around the university.