“再见，杭州” / Goodbye, Hangzhou

It’s hard for me to believe, but my time in Hangzhou has come to an end. I landed home about two nights ago, but I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that the semester is over!  As of right now, I am back home and um…not quite unpacked. I may or may not be trying to put it off. Honestly, it still feels surreal to me that I am back home. It’s both a feeling of happiness and sadness.

I am happy to be home because there were many times while abroad when I felt homesick. There were times when I just wanted to use Facebook or Youtube without having to worry about the restrictions from China’s internet. Or sometimes I just missed some good ol’ American food. Admittedly, there were also times when I would get frustrated with the language barrier. My Chinese is decent, but often I couldn’t express myself fully and sometimes it was definitely exasperating. However, that’s part of the experience!

But now, oddly enough, I feel….school sick? Don’t get me wrong, I love being home and seeing all my old friends and whatnot. But at the same time, I definitely miss my little life that I had in Hangzhou. Yesterday I woke up craving a GuoGuo’s Taiwanese pancake, but unfortunately now have no means of getting any. Strange as it is, I miss my tiny little room and all the other international students I got to know overseas.

A few months ago, I posted an entry about making friends when studying abroad. I will say that at the time, H-23 as a group was not as close as we are now. I’m not making it up—we all really did start hanging out more within the last month before we left. (Some of the guys used to hang out with us maybe like twice a week, but in the end, we were all together each day) It was kind of sad that it took us 3 months to really feel like we were friends, but at the same time, I would take that over nothing. I would love to see Joel and Bert (the two students who went on our trip that were not from Valpo) again after this trip, though I know it will be hard since they are in different areas around the US. But we exchanged numbers and promised to keep contact afterwards! I really do mean that I think we’ve had one of the best groups for this program. We are all different, but in the end we all became closer. Everyone had their own role and added something to the group. I am going to miss them all so much, especially the two “honorary Crusaders” Bert and Joel.

I definitely had a positive study abroad experience. It was often challenging, as it really is a time for you to stop depending on other people and to explore other cultures. You will often be pushed outside your comfort zone, i.e if there is a language barrier. But that is what makes the experience so fulfilling. Now that I’m home, I’ve realized that my Chinese has definite improved and I feel so much more independent than when I first left home. My advice to anyone considering studying abroad is this: make sure you are ready to take on the challenge of leaving the comfort of your friends and family/culture. Always keep an open mind to new cultures, even though you may not understand it at first. If you think that you are ready to take on this challenge, then I wholeheartedly encourage studying abroad.

Thanks for following, and please let me know if there are any more questions or comments! 再见, or “zaijian” (see you later).

(sadly enough this is the best/final picture we could get of ourselves before splitting up for good at O’hare. Missing part of Ryan/JJ)