Miss Me? Love Me? - Beijing, China
Beijing, China
“What if my flight is delayed?” “What if I am forced to take a detour to a different city like Tokyo like last time?” “Will I miss my flight to Beijing?” These questions kept popping in my mind on the night before my flight to Beijing.
It was not until midnight that I finally fell asleep.
At five am, my dad slammed my door and yelled at me to wake up. I jumped up and got ready fast. We left the house fast.
Checking in my luggage went fast. For breakfast, I just felt like eating McDonald since I had not have it since forever. Eating that sausage McMuffin was heaven!
Foolishly, I quickly glanced at my boarding pass and thought it said the gate number was thirty-eight. I sat at that gate for half an hour. Finally, I looked up at the display board and it said New York. I looked over my pass again and it said the gate was twenty-eight.
Luckily, the gate was only a few minutes away. I still had over an hour before boarding started. In the mean while, I watched the news on the tv screen and they reported about the heavy snow storms on the east coast. I was lucky that the weather was nice in Colorado today.
While waiting to board, a Chinese man spoke to me. He asked where I came from. I said that I was Chinese American. Then, he asked if I was Taiwanese. I told him that my parents were ethnic Chinese from Vietnam. The man asked what school I was studying in Beijing. I had to repeat the Chinese name twice for him. He laughed and repeated the name.
My Chinese pronunciation still sucks.
After arriving in San Francisco, I sat down and called my friend Chandler for a bit. I had not seen her since last spring. Afterward, I texted my friend Sydney. She texted, “Don’t leave!!” That made me realized that I left everything at Regis for China. It was huge for me to walk away, but I needed to do something for myself for once.
On my flight to Beijing, I did not get my own tv screen, which sucked. Instead, they showed movies for everyone to watch. I ended up listening to music.
Near the end of the flight, the same Chinese man waved at me. A second later, I noticed. He laughed a bit.
After getting off the plane, I quickly got my luggage. I met up with my Chinese program. A lot of the new people were from Loyola Chicago this semester! Yet again, I was the only person from Regis, but I was not sad about it. I would much rather to have it that way because it forces me to meet new people.
When I got on the bus to UIBE, I met Bethany’s friend Natasha. Natasha was telling me about how Bethany talked about having so much fun in Beijing last semester. I honestly told Natasha that Bethany was one of the most fun people last semester. The rest were pretty dull because they did not want to do anything. Bethany would always be, “I want to do something today, Benny.” I would tag along as Bethany’s sidekick. We would eat and shop a lot. No shame in that.
Ryan asked me how my break at home was. I said that it was great. He told me that he stayed in Beijing during the holiday.
Driving to UIBE took forever because of rush hour. At UIBE, we checked into my rooms. New girls moved into Amelia’s, Katherine’s, and Alana’s former rooms. So odd to not see them again.
Then, we walked to eat dinner. I ran into Cathy! So happy that she got hired back as a Chinese roommate. She is such a cool girl to hang around with.
At the restaurant, CC was there! I sat next to her. She was telling me about what she was doing lately. So glad that she returned as a Chinese roommate too.
During dinner, I talked with the new people. A few people told me that they were doing a special scholar project, which they were in Rome last semester. They explained that they were continuing their projects in Beijing this semester. So jealous. Italy is one of those places that I badly want to go because I love Italian food!
I walked back to my dorm room after dinner. Walking in, it made me realized that Anthony was gone. It hit me that he returned back to Seattle. So sad. I enjoyed being evil to him. One time, he was skyping his girlfriend Katie. I said that I wanted to say hi to her. He said that she just got up. I responded, “So, are you saying that she is not good looking?” Katie quickly yelled at Anthony.
It was hard for me to process that Anthony will not be my roommate and he will not be in my Chinese class anymore.
A couple minutes later, my Chinese roommate Mike finally showed up. He was two inches taller than me. I am a shortee.
My mind was somewhere else as I was talking to him because I confused him with my sentences. I jumped all over the places about things like my flight to Beijing and what I was doing tomorrow. About my plans tomorrow, I told him the place. He had no idea what I was talking about until I typed it in my phone. He quickly knew and told me that I mispronounced the place. My Chinese was clearly bad.
Mike left to do his own thing. I continued unpacking.
I really wish my friends last semester were here again. They made China so fun. However, I know that change is a part of life and new changes tend to make things more adventurous.