Thursday, August 23, 2012

Opportunity

There are some days when the opportunity of living in China doesn't feel so much like an opportunity, when it feels more like having had too many classes and all the craziness of getting ready to leave Beijing and our group of forty-three and get ready to transition to a new city.  To a new school.  To writing lesson plans and having my own students and having to learn how to be an adult and how to be a university professor and how to live in China all at once. 

There are some days in China, like days in America or Canada or anywhere else, when life just kind of drags along.

But there are some times when the opportunity of living in China strikes me hard.

When I cannot believe that we are here and that we are getting to do all that we are doing.

Tonight we had a dance party to celebrate birthdays and the end of our TEFL certification prep classes and other good news.  As we were walking back to our hotel (two miles away, maybe) we began singing.  There were a lot of us.  Perhaps twenty.

We sang Sanctuary.  We sang Amazing Grace.  We sang I Bid You Goodnight.  We sang many other things, and it was lovely.

And it astonishes me when I think about it.

All of us.  Here.   Singing.

"Are you Chinese?" asked one of the men who crossed paths with us. 

No, but we love China.


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