Saying Goodbye...for now

Counting down the minutes and hours now until my flight leaves Beijing Thursday afternoon...its hard to believe that just 6 months ago I was sitting in the passenger window of my first Beijing taxi watching the apartments of Wangjing fly by in an orange haze of winter smog on my way to the hutong hotel where I would stay for my first five days in China.

Now its July 29th and I'm trying to pack my stuff home, cramming Chinese local food specialties between t-shirts purchased at Nanluoguxiang, and wondering if my Mao lighters will pass through baggage screening this time.

The last few days have been a whirl of goodbyes, riding the subway across Beijing and back to my pinfang, to see some of the Tsinghua students and professor I met up at Wudaokou, having lunch with another friend, going out to the west third ring road to see my former professor at Capital Normal University, and then over today to a mall near the CBD to go over the final survey report I produced for the Global Heritage Fund in Pingyao with the site director Han Li. Tonight after having circumnavigated the various extremities of the Beijing subway system, I was ready for collapsing in my comfortable little bed, but though my body was tired my mind was filled with the memories of the past few months that are beginning to replay themselves like a reel in my mind accompanied by Green Day's "I Hope you Have the Time of Your Life" playing in the background as it was sung at my Bar Mitzvah service by my hip new-age fusion cantor.

Earlier today I awoke to take the subway to the far northern outskirts of town to get a glimpse at Orange County, Beijing: the Chinese version of my suburban but apparently oh-so hip home county, a veritable piece of southern california suburbia in the fields north of Beijing (more to come on that later) home to the people who "got rich first" in this dizzying economic boom.

Right now, I can't imagine what it will be like to step off the plane in Socal after six months abroad. Will it be a harder adjustment than moving to China? Will I have reverse culture shock? Whow knows? But what I do know at this point is that the first meal I plan to have upon arrival will be a big fat juicy In N Out Burger, animal style.