As we say farewell to our life in China (for now at least), I’ve had time to reflect on the things I’ve come to love about the small city of one million people that we’ve called home for the last year.
I’ll certainly miss the relaxed ease and delightful affordability of shopping at the vegetable market down the street from our apartment in Yixing. Colorful and buzzing with the energy of a good bargain, the market always promised the pleasure of seeing familiar faces and walking away with a pound of shitake mushrooms on the cheap.
I’ll miss one thing that we’re sorely lacking in America. A deep reverence for our elders. Older citizens in China are inspiring - always enjoying public space at all hours, active in dance, tai chi and sports, and often smiling. Their social life and mobility in the city simply blows me away when I think of the too often isolated and dependent lives led by so many in our grandparents’ generation.
I’ll miss being around a completely different tea drinking culture than the one I grew up with. My family has always enjoyed curling up together on the couch with our mugs of black tea with milk and sugar in hand, a comfort of home I’ve come to treasure. In China, the very different but equally communal practice of sitting together around the table, sipping small cups of strong green teas and sharing conversation is something I’ll think of whenever I look at the gorgeous clay teapots we collected in Yixing.
I know Jia Ching and I will both really miss all the adorable mutts we’d see around town. We did some serious research on the possibility of bringing a pup home with us to California, but sadly, no dice.
I’ve posted plenty during our experiences in Yixing, and traveling around the country and region, but there is so much I’ve left out. All in all, we’ve had an amazing adventure in this last year, filled with plenty of encounters with absolute bizarreness and yet also finding quiet rituals and spaces of familiarity.
Always grateful for our opportunities to travel, eat, learn, make wonderful new friends, and connect with old ones, Jia Ching and I say good-bye to China for now and thanks for the memories.
