Lists

So, my time left here in the People’s Lovely Republic is short. In these situations, I feel reflection is inevitable—an attempt to discern through the fog of time and emotion the moorings of fact and what will be memory. I’m also starting to think of the friends I know will be coming here themselves soon enough or even in the winter, to walk the same steps I have. I’ve found the best way to go about organizing things (for me at least) is lists. From lists, you can expand to points, and connecting points, you make arguments, manifestos, and revolution.

Things I will miss or have already started to miss about life in China:
-Chinese food, Chinese food, Chinese food
-music shows in Beijing (Jazz at D-22, seeing Iz, etc.)
-big group dinners in Beijing
-Laobian Jiaozi Restaurant—best Dongbei (Northeast-style cuisine, i.e. dumplings) restaurant ever…
-jidan Guan Bing (egg-pancakes sold by the old couple outside the gate of CET Beijing)
-the little convenience stores outside CET
-the Xinjiang food near CET
-group outings to Sanlitun’r (the bar street)
-warm bubble tea (zhenzhu naicha, ‘pearl milk tea’) in cold Hangzhou
-Lanzhou food: la mian (pulled noodles), potatoes and beef on rice, and jidan chaomian (egg with fried noodles)
-scotch and green tea (together)
-bottled green tea
-7 Club in Hangzhou—cozy little import beer bar
-the one Hangzhou Greentown soccer game I went to
-conversations on bus rides with classmates (usually about China or the people around us)
-times at the all-you-can-eat/drink Japanese restaurant in Hangzhou and our tours of West Lake afterwards
-nighttime jaunts around West Lake in general
-old people and their crazy dancing, exercising, and games
-exploring neighborhoods
-epic scenery/locations
-really smiley waitresses/store workers
-(usually) great service without having to tip
-my teachers
-a little village one mountain away from Tibet
-easy access to lots and lots of different kinds of tea
-being able to bend rules because I’m a foreigner
-the bit of unprostituted, undestroyed culture you might accidentally find somewhere
-making coffee with my French press
-75-cent DVDs
-drying my clothes on the line
-qiezi (Chinese eggplant in all its tender, gooey goodness)

Things I won’t miss:
-the staring, gawking, laowai-laowai-laowai-ing, walk-by Hello!s, and requested/unrequested photographs
-shop clerks hovering an inch behind me or trying to sell me everything I do and do not look at
-la duzi (“pulled stomach”—take a guess)
-being lectured to about my country/Chinese nationalism
-Chinese political/whatever slogans and other feihua (“nonsense”/"thief's talk")
-the ignorance—western and Chinese
-unrelenting and pervasive anti-Japanese mentality
-“cultural exchanges”—“Americans are all rich, right?”
-struggling with people who ignore my Chinese in order to speak their English—which no one understands, least of all me
-Hangzhou cabbies—may they rot in hell
-Chinese traffic/transportation impatience
-people of all shapes, sizes, and gender blowing snot-rockets and hocking their insides out everywhere
-everyone littering and the people whose job is to sweep the streets after them
-the prevalence chain-smokers
-being told my Chinese is great after I say Ni hao (Hello)
-never 100% understanding someone/never being 100% certain I spoke correctly
-seeing someone dead or dying with a group of people standing around them just watching
-people incapable of forming a line
-long fingernails
-women shielding themselves in any ridiculous way they can from the barest drop of sunlight that might touch (and darken) their skin
-Chinese train stations
-the Chinese tourism industry and its effect upon landmarks
-Chinese break-my-heart pop music
-Chinese "House" music
-white-tile buildings with blue windows
-squealing electric scooter brakes
-crossing streets

I guess that gives you an idea.