Going Home Day

Katie at the Beijing Capital Airport

We are in between flights on the journey home to the United States from China. As we exchanged the last of our renminbi at the airport this morning, Micah started humming the “Star Spangled Banner” under his breath as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and others replaced Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong, and Mao Zedong in his wallet. (Mao’s on every denomination of bill, with the exception of a limited run of 10 RMB notes produced for the Olympics.)

Micah eats his last jianbing

There are many things we will not miss about China. These include the following:

• Lack of civil rights, especially free speech
• The Great Firewall
• Spitting, smoking, and split pants
• Propaganda, State-run media, and those who hang on its every word
• Grandmothers digging through trash barrels next to parked Bentleys
• Taxis passing us by because we are not Chinese
• Fuwa - The Beijing Olympic Mascots
• CCTV 9
• Squatter toilets!
• The constant challenge of not speaking fluent Mandarin
• Pedestrian (lack of) right of way

There are also many things that we will miss.

• Our friends, including our classmates, our language tutors, and the expat community in Beijing.
• 小吃: Chinese snacks – especially Jian Bing, Boazi, Joazi, dragon fruit '
• Restaurants: the vegetarian restaurant in the Qinghua Science park, Ganges Indian, Da Dong Peking Duck, No Name Yunnan, Moro, Café Sambal, etc.
• Watching grandparents care for young children outside our apartment building every morning
• Prices
• Bargaining for everything
• Electronic Bicycles
• Random acts of kindness
• Candid exchanges about weight, salary, and bathroom functions
• Chinglish (for example, a teller window at the back of our local bank labeled, “Rear Service”)
• Zhongglish (e.g. “This is so mafan!!”)
• The constant challenge of not speaking fluent Mandarin

A year in China meant a front seat to history. We witnessed the largest rural-urban migration ever, the 2008 Olympics, the Sichuan Earthquake, the riots in Tibet, and the continued opening of relations between Taiwan and the Mainland. We saw xenophobia and nationalism wax when protesters converged upon Carrefour and other French cultural icons after the Olympic torch relay was interrupted in Paris. Almost as quickly, we saw the hate and vitriol wane as the Olympics neared and the French were again welcomed with open arms along with the rest of the world.

It also meant a renewed gratitude for our homeland. The United States has its problems, and often Americans act in ways we prefer they did not. At dinner with some friends a few days ago, we heard about how the American media was throwing its weight around at the Olympics, cordoning off space in the media village and seeking special status. In the past eight years, the US has undermined its own reputation around the world and seen its economy plummet.

But only in China have we been forced to sign confessions by a police officer, seen the result of unchecked power wielded by an elite that sits above the law, and experienced the pitfalls of a nearly-complete absence of civil society. In China the government appears to have turned a blind eye to massive environmental degradation and trampled on the rights of anyone standing in the way of rapid economic progress. Only in China does the government so blatantly ignore contracts with foreign companies in order to promote domestic companies.

The United States, on the other hand, has a binding Constitution, a Clean Air Act, the world’s finest military, and rule of law. Nothing comes close.

A year in China has been just enough, particularly when the beauty of the Rocky Mountains and friends and family await us back home. For this reason, we will be celebrating August 29th as “Going Home Day” every year from here on. We return home as more grateful people, happy to have experienced China and just in time to meet the family rule of “work before 30!” It was a year of Boulder to Beijing, but we are looking forward to the “Beijing2Boulder” part of the adventure even more.

Thanks for reading.